About

Benjamin Arbuckle, PhD, is a professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He has been recognized for his scholarly work with the award of an Arts and Humanities Research grant, which supports his creative and academic pursuits. The department emphasizes diversity and equal opportunities, aligning with the university's core values. Further details about his specific research focus or contributions are not provided in the available page text.

Research topics

• Biology
• Geography
• Archaeology
• Sociology
• Ecology
• Zoology
• Demography
• History
• Epistemology
• Philosophy
• Ancient history
• Environmental ethics
• Art

Selected publications

• Review: <i>Live Stock and Dead Things: The Archaeology of Zoopolitics Between Domestication and Modernity</i> , by Hannah Chazin

  Animal History · 2026-03-30

  article1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Genomic insights into social life in Neolithic Anatolia

  Science · 2025-06-26 · 1 citations

  letter1st authorCorresponding

  Matriarchs and foragers emerge as important players in early farming villages.

  PublisherDOI

• Strontium (87Sr/86Sr) evidence for the geography of Indigenous deer hunting in the North Carolina Piedmont

  Journal of Archaeological Science Reports · 2025-06-03

  articleSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Validating a Target‐Enrichment Design for Capturing Uniparental Haplotypes in Ancient Domesticated Animals

  Molecular Ecology Resources · 2025-04-09 · 2 citations

  articleOpen access

  In the last three decades, DNA sequencing of ancient animal osteological assemblages has become an important tool complementing standard archaeozoological approaches to reconstruct the history of animal domestication. However, osteological assemblages of key archaeological contexts are not always available or do not necessarily preserve enough ancient DNA for a cost-effective genetic analysis. Here, we develop an in-solution target-enrichment approach, based on 80-mer species-specific RNA probes (ranging from 306 to 1686 per species) to characterise (in single experiments) the mitochondrial genetic variation from eight domesticated animal species of major economic interest: cattle, chickens, dogs, donkeys, goats, horses, pigs and sheep. We also illustrate how our design can be adapted to enrich DNA library content and map the Y-chromosomal diversity within Equus caballus. By applying our target-enrichment assay to an extensive panel of ancient osteological remains, farm soil, and cave sediments spanning the last 43 kyrs, we demonstrate that minimal sequencing efforts are necessary to exhaust the DNA library complexity and to characterise mitogenomes to an average depth-of-coverage of 19.4 to 2003.7-fold. Our assay further retrieved horse mitogenome and Y-chromosome data from Late Pleistocene coprolites, as well as bona fide mitochondrial sequences from species that were not part of the probe design, such as bison and cave hyena. Our methodology will prove especially useful to minimise costs related to the genetic analyses of maternal and paternal lineages of a wide range of domesticated and wild animal species, and for mapping their diversity changes over space and time, including from environmental samples.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Decoding past microbial life and antibiotic resistance in İnonü Cave’s archaeological soil

  PLoS ONE · 2025-07-31 · 1 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior authorCorresponding

  This study, which bridges the disciplines of archaeology and microbiology, examines the ancient bacterial communities and antibiotic-resistance genes in soil samples collected from İnönü Cave in Zonguldak, Turkiye. Our aim is to provide a comprehensive understanding of historical human activities and their influence on microbial communities. Soil samples were gathered from four distinct cultural levels from the Chalcolithic Age to the Early Iron Age. The microbial communities were characterized, and antibiotic-resistance genes were identified using high-throughput sequencing of 16S rRNA genes and metagenomic studies. This interdisciplinary approach not only enriches our understanding of ancient microbial communities but also opens up new avenues for research and collaboration. The results of our study showed a wide range of microorganisms, including prominent bacterial groups such as Acidobacteriota, Actinobacteriota, Bacteroidota, Chloroflexi, Cyanobacteria, Firmicutes, Myxococcota, and Proteobacteria. The study identified the presence of the tetracycline resistance gene tetA in Chalcolithic samples, the class 1 integron intl1 in Early Bronze Age samples, and the oxacillinase gene OXA58 in Late Bronze Age samples. These findings underscore the long-term impact of human activities on microbial communities, as antibiotic-resistance genes have been present and have remained over various historical periods, perhaps influenced by both human activities and environmental variables. This knowledge is crucial for understanding the resilience and adaptability of microbial communities in the face of human-induced changes. The coexistence of these resistance genes and alterations in the microbial population suggest substantial connections between human activities and soil microbiota. This study, which draws on the fields of archaeology, microbiology, and environmental science, offers valuable insights into the ancient microbial ecology and underscores the enduring presence of antibiotic resistance. It emphasizes the necessity of a comprehensive, interdisciplinary approach, spanning multiple fields, to comprehend microbial communities' evolution and resistance mechanisms in archaeological settings.

  PublisherDOI

• Ancient genomics and the origin, dispersal, and development of domestic sheep

  Science · 2025-01-30 · 25 citations

  articleOpen access

  ) are incompletely understood; to address this, we generated data from 118 ancient genomes spanning 12,000 years sampled from across Eurasia. Genomes from Central Türkiye ~8000 BCE are genetically proximal to the domestic origins of sheep but do not fully explain the ancestry of later populations, suggesting a mosaic of wild ancestries. Genomic signatures indicate selection by ancient herders for pigmentation patterns, hornedness, and growth rate. Although the first European sheep flocks derive from Türkiye, in a notable parallel with ancient human genome discoveries, we detected a major influx of Western steppe-related ancestry in the Bronze Age.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• The first complete genome of the extinct European wild ass ( <i>Equus hemionus hydruntinus</i> )

  Molecular Ecology · 2024-07-01 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access

  We present palaeogenomes of three morphologically unidentified Anatolian equids dating to the first millennium BCE, sequenced to a coverage of 0.6-6.4×. Mitochondrial DNA haplotypes of the Anatolian individuals clustered with those of Equus hydruntinus (or Equus hemionus hydruntinus), the extinct European wild ass, secular name 'hydruntine'. Further, the Anatolian wild ass whole genome profiles fell outside the genomic diversity of other extant and past Asiatic wild ass (E. hemionus) lineages. These observations suggest that the three Anatolian wild asses represent hydruntines, making them the latest recorded survivors of this lineage, about a millennium later than the latest observations in the zooarchaeological record. Our mitogenomic and genomic analyses indicate that E. h. hydruntinus was a clade belonging to ancient and present-day E. hemionus lineages that radiated possibly between 0.6 and 0.8 Mya. We also find evidence consistent with recent gene flow between hydruntines and Middle Eastern wild asses. Analyses of genome-wide heterozygosity and runs of homozygosity suggest that the Anatolian wild ass population may have lost genetic diversity by the mid-first millennium BCE, a possible sign of its eventual demise.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Ancient mitogenomes from Pre-Pottery Neolithic Central Anatolia and the effects of a Late Neolithic bottleneck in sheep ( <i>Ovis aries</i> )

  Science Advances · 2024-04-12 · 10 citations

  articleOpen access

  Occupied between ~10,300 and 9300 years ago, the Pre-Pottery Neolithic site of Aşıklı Höyük in Central Anatolia went through early phases of sheep domestication. Analysis of 629 mitochondrial genomes from this and numerous sites in Anatolia, southwest Asia, Europe, and Africa produced a phylogenetic tree with excessive coalescences (nodes) around the Neolithic, a potential signature of a domestication bottleneck. This is consistent with archeological evidence of sheep management at Aşıklı Höyük which transitioned from residential stabling to open pasturing over a millennium of site occupation. However, unexpectedly, we detected high genetic diversity throughout Aşıklı Höyük’s occupation rather than a bottleneck. Instead, we detected a tenfold demographic bottleneck later in the Neolithic, which caused the fixation of mitochondrial haplogroup B in southwestern Anatolia. The mitochondrial genetic makeup that emerged was carried from the core region of early Neolithic sheep management into Europe and dominates the matrilineal diversity of both its ancient and the billion-strong modern sheep populations.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Widespread horse-based mobility arose around 2200 bce in Eurasia

  Nature · 2024-06-06 · 99 citations

  articleOpen access

  Abstract Horses revolutionized human history with fast mobility 1 . However, the timeline between their domestication and their widespread integration as a means of transport remains contentious 2–4 . Here we assemble a collection of 475 ancient horse genomes to assess the period when these animals were first reshaped by human agency in Eurasia. We find that reproductive control of the modern domestic lineage emerged around 2200 bce , through close-kin mating and shortened generation times. Reproductive control emerged following a severe domestication bottleneck starting no earlier than approximately 2700 bce , and coincided with a sudden expansion across Eurasia that ultimately resulted in the replacement of nearly every local horse lineage. This expansion marked the rise of widespread horse-based mobility in human history, which refutes the commonly held narrative of large horse herds accompanying the massive migration of steppe peoples across Europe around 3000 bce and earlier 3,5 . Finally, we detect significantly shortened generation times at Botai around 3500 bce , a settlement from central Asia associated with corrals and a subsistence economy centred on horses 6,7 . This supports local horse husbandry before the rise of modern domestic bloodlines.

  PublisherDOI

• Widespread horse-based mobility arose around 2200 bce in Eurasia

  UNC Libraries · 2024-11-06

  articleOpen access
  PublisherDOI

Recent grants

• The Origins of Equid Domestication

  NSF · $362k · 2013–2018

Frequent coauthors

• Marjan Mashkour

  Archéozoologie et Archéobotanique

  28 shared

• Thierry Grange

  Institut Jacques Monod

  19 shared

• Eva-María Geigl

  19 shared

• Joris Peters

  Bavarian Natural History Collections

  18 shared

• Patrick Wincker

  16 shared

• Jean‐Marc Aury

  Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique

  16 shared

• Azadeh Fatemeh Mohaseb

  Archéozoologie et Archéobotanique

  14 shared

• Aude Perdereau

  Université Paris-Saclay

  14 shared

Awards & honors

• Arts and Humanities Research grant