## 2 Materials and Methodological Framework
### The Konya Plain in Central Anatolia, Turkey  
Detailed ethnographic surveys on modern husbandry and ethnobotanical studies of foddering and dung materials were carried out during the 1990s in two farming villages from central Anatolia, in Turkey: Panrabas, a small settlement on the edge of the Taurus mountains, in the Karaman district, and Kizilkaya, a larger rural village on the Melendiz  
Figure 3: Photomicrographs of phytoliths and calcitic microfossils from modern and archaeological dung samples (200\(\times\) or 400\(\times\)). (**a**) Partially melted multicellular (articulated) phytoliths from sheep/ goat dung after 800 \({}^{\circ}\)C of experimentally produced combustion in a furnace oven, Bestansur, Iraqui Kurdistan (PPL); (**b**) clusters of dung spherulites (mostly darkened), from sheep/ goat dung burned at 650 \({}^{\circ}\)C in a furnace oven under reducing conditions, Bestansur, Iraqui Kurdistan (XPL); (**c**) epidermal appendage base with attached (articulated) hair from the leaves of dicotyledonus plants from herbivous penning deposits at early Neolithic Catalhóyuk, Central Anatolia, Turkey; (**d**) clusters of dung spherulites (none of which are darkened) from the same penning deposits at Catalhóyuk; (**e**) multicellular (articulated) phytoliths from the leaves and culms of Pooideae grasses and needs from burnt-herbivore dung deposits at Late Neolithic Panrabas, Central Anatolia, Turkey; (**f**) calcitic wood ash pseudomorphs (coded as apps) along with multicellular phytoliths (mc) and single-celled or individual phytoliths (sc), from mixed woody/oxicaprine dung fuel remains from a modern _tannur_ type (_tabouna_) oven used daily for cooking and baking at El Souidat, northeastern Tunisia. Plain, in the Aksaray district [6; 52; 53]. Ethnographic fieldwork enabled the examination of animal dung materials, or _tezek_ (the generic Turkish name for dung), and the manufacture, storage, and use of the so-called dung cakes for fuel purposes, as well as the analysis of the macro-botanical components of these dung materials, mainly from cattle and sheep defectors [6]. A variety of different types of dung cakes was reported, mostly manufactured during spring and summer, as well as a wide range of firing installations fuelled with dung cakes, including the locally called _tandir_, a mud oven similar to near eastern _tannurs_, used daily for cooking and baking. More recently, the examination of micromorphological thin-sections of dung cakes and fuel residues from the firing installations collected by [PERSON] and [PERSON] allowed the analysis of their microfossil plant and faecal contents [29], used as comparative records in a selection of archaeological contexts from neighbouring early Holocene sites in the Konya Plain [28; 43; 44; 45]. The phytolith and dung spherulite study of the modern reference micromorphological thin-sections indicated differences between dung records that were related to animal diet regimes and the ethnography-reported foddering and grazing patterns, in addition to seasonality [29]. Yet, phytolith results showed some degree of difference in phytolith morphologies, particularly among sheep dung collected in different seasons (summer vs. winter, Figure 2b,c). In particular, summer-rich diets were dominated by multicelled or anatomically interconnected phytoliths from the floral parts of cereals, which were consistent with previous ethnobotanical records pointing to the presence of a wide range of cereal grains, primarily wheat, barley, rye, and oat, in addition to wild and weed seeds [6]. These authors caution, however, that variations between dung types and their components may be difficult to assess in the archaeological record due to differences in selection of feed by animals and human manipulation, pointing that dung from different herding regimes and seasons may be stored for a long time, even several years.