Why Archaeologists Are Studying 10,000-Year-Old Urine
The history of animal domestication might be recorded in ancient pee.
About 10,000 years ago, a group of hunter-gatherers settled on a floodplain in modern-day Turkey and stayed for a millennium. You can still see remnants of the houses they built. Archaeologists have mapped out alleyways and uncovered intact skeletons under ancient plaster floors. After all this time, Aşıklı Höyük is remarkably well preserved.
But Jordan Abell did not come for these sights when he last visited Aşıklı Höyük in 2017. He came to look for something invisible: ancient urine.
The people of Aşıklı at the site 10,000 years ago. You might call it urine archaeology.
