Ehud Weiss | Bar-Ilan University (original) (raw)
Books by Ehud Weiss
The origin of agriculture is one of the defining events of human history. Some 11-10,000 years ag... more The origin of agriculture is one of the defining events of human history. Some 11-10,000 years ago bands of hunter-gatherers started to abandon their high-mobility lifestyles in favour of growing crops, and the creation of settled, sedentary communities. This shift into an agricultural lifestyle triggered the evolution of complex political and economic structures, and technological developments, and ultimately underpinned the rise of all the great civilisations of recent humanhistory.Domestication of Plants in the Old World reviews and synthesises the information on the origins and domestication of cultivated plants in the Old World, and subsequently the spread of cultivation from southwest Asia into Asia, Europe, and north Africa, from the very earliest beginnings. This book is mainly based on detailed consideration of two lines of evidences: the plant remains found at archaeological sites, and the knowledge that has accumulated about the present-day wildrelatives of domesticated plants. This new edition revises and updates previous data and incorporates the most recent findings from molecular biology about the genetic relations between domesticated plants and their wild ancestors, and incorporates extensive new archaeological data about the spread of agriculturewithin the region. The reference list has been completely updated, as have the list of archaeological sites and the site maps.
Papers by Ehud Weiss
![Research paper thumbnail of Food provisioning, offerings and dietary items as reflected by the Late Bronze and Iron Ages archaeobotanical remains from Timna (in Hebrew) [Negev, Dead Sea and Arava Studies 14 (2022): 188-200]](https://attachments.academia-assets.com/98249927/thumbnails/1.jpg)
](In the 1960s and 1970s, two copper-smelting sites (Sites 2 and 30) and a cultic place (the 'Hatho... more In the 1960s and 1970s, two copper-smelting sites (Sites 2 and 30) and a cultic place (the 'Hathor Shrine', Site 200) were excavated in the Timna Valley by Beno Rothenberg's 'Arabah Expedition'. They yielded rich archaeobotanical assemblages, which apart from Site 200 were never published. This provides a rare opportunity to reconstruct plant food aspects of the daily lives of copper smelters. In this study, we were able to locate and identify some 10,000 plant remains, dating to the final phase of the Late Bronze Age and the early Iron Age (the 13th–9th centuries BCE). Since most of the finds are fruits (grape, date, fig, and olive), we suggest that this evidence represents dried or pickled fruits ("snacks"), consumed by the smelters throughout the day due to their calorie-rich value and ease of use. Plant-based food preparation, like cereals and legumes, was probably carried out elsewhere in ephemeral tent encampments. The smelter's diet components appear consistently throughout the main activity period in the valley. Likewise, the food supply chain was established by the Egyptians and continued afterward. It was based on staple food imported from afar, complemented with wild edible fruits from the surrounding area. In addition, the shrine's plant assemblage, which includes the same species found in the smelting camps, suggests that the metalworkers used their food as an offering to the goddess Hathor (and possibly also to other deities).
Domestication of Plants in the Old World, 2012
Pebble stone installations are commonly found at various Early Bronze Age sites in the southern L... more Pebble stone installations are commonly found at various Early Bronze Age sites in the southern Levant. However, their function is often assumed or unknown. Thirteen circular pebble installations were found scattered throughout a residential neighbourhood dating to the Early Bronze Age III at Tell es-Safi/Gath. Five such installations were recently studied by implementing an integrated micro-archaeological approach by which all micro-and macro-artefacts were analysed using various analytical techniques. Based on the analysis of ash-micro remains identified in the sediments, associated plant remains, flint and pottery, we suggest that these installations were used for food-processing, cooking and/or other domestic low-heat tasks. The installations first appear at Tell es-Safi/Gath during the Early Bronze Age III, and seem to disappear during later periods. The functional roles of these installations are discussed in comparison to finds from other Early Bronze Age sites, and of other food preparation traditions known from other periods and cultures.
Worldwide, human impact on natural landscapes has intensified since prehistoric times, and this i... more Worldwide, human impact on natural landscapes has intensified since prehistoric times, and this is well documented in the global archaeological record. The period between the earliest hominids and the Industrial Revolution of the late 18-19 th centuries is known as the Paleo-Anthropocene. The current study reviews key geoarchaeological, floral and faunal factors of the Paleo-Anthropocene in Israel, an area that has undergone human activities in various intensities since prehistoric times. It discusses significant human imprints on these three features in the Israeli landscape, demonstrating that its current form is almost entirely anthropogenic. Moreover, some of the past physical changes still dynamically shape Israel's zoological, archaeological and geomorphic landscape today. It is hoped that insights from this article might aid in guiding present-day management strategies of undeveloped areas through renewal of human activity guided by traditional knowledge.
Journal of Eastern Mediterranean Archaeology and Heritage Studies, 2021
The unique “Cave of the Warrior” burial, found in a Judean Desert cave and dated to the end of th... more The unique “Cave of the Warrior” burial, found in
a Judean Desert cave and dated to the end of the
The Chalcolithic period was accompanied by a large number
of grave goods made of perishable materials. It opens
up an unusual opportunity to recover aspects of the
life of an individual person. Based on a reexamination
of his personal belongings, we created a microhistory
of this individual. We show how a careful analysis of a
single-event site contributes to the interpretation and
defi nition of the archaeological record and periodization.
The individual most probably originated in the
Judean or Samarian Highlands from a settlement whose
inhabitants practiced a mixed Mediterranean economy.
The individual himself practiced pastoralism and traveled
between the highlands and the desert. The remote
location and unique burial may be seen as reflective of
stresses related to demographic and economic changes
occurring at the end of the Chalcolithic period.
The international scope of the Mediterranean wine trade in Late Antiquity raises important questi... more The international scope of the Mediterranean wine trade in Late Antiquity raises important questions concerning sustainability in an ancient international economy and offers a valuable historical precedent to modern globalization. Such questions involve the role of intercontinental commerce in maintaining sustainable production within important supply regions and the vulnerability of peripheral regions believed to have been especially sensitive to environmental and political disturbances. We provide archaeobo-tanical evidence from trash mounds at three sites in the central Negev Desert, Israel, unraveling the rise and fall of viticulture over the second to eighth centuries of the common era (CE). Using quantitative ceramic data obtained in the same archaeological contexts, we further investigate connections between Negev viticulture and circum-Mediterranean trade. Our findings demonstrate interrelated growth in viticulture and involvement in Med-iterranean trade reaching what appears to be a commercial scale in the fourth to mid-sixth centuries. Following a mid-sixth century peak, decline of this system is evident in the mid-to late sixth century, nearly a century before the Islamic conquest. These findings closely correspond with other archaeological evidence for social , economic, and urban growth in the fourth century and decline centered on the mid-sixth century. Contracting markets were a likely proximate cause for the decline; possible triggers include climate change, plague, and wider sociopolitical developments. In long-term historical perspective, the unprecedented commercial florescence of the Late Antique Negev appears to have been un-sustainable, reverting to an age-old pattern of smaller-scale settlement and survival-subsistence strategies within a time frame of about two centuries. Negev | Byzantine Empire | archaeobotany | protoglobalization | economic archaeology
This article presents a systematic methodological comparison of three archaeobotanical proxies (p... more This article presents a systematic methodological comparison of three archaeobotanical proxies (phy-toliths, pollen and seeds) applied to an assemblage of dung pellets and corresponding archaeological refuse deposits from Early Islamic contexts at the site of Shivta. We set out with three main methodo-logical questions: one, to evaluate the relative input of botanical remains from dung in refuse assemblages ; two, to evaluate each archaeobotanical dataset and to test whether they are comparable, complementary or contradictory in their interpretations from dung; and three, infer herding practices at the site during the Early Islamic period. Our findings show that ovicaprine dung accumulated in Early Islamic Shivta during at least two periods: mid-7themid-8th centuries CE, and late-8themid-10th centuries CE. Methodologically, we see incomplete and incompatible reconstructions arise when each method is considered alone, with each proxy possessing its own advantages and limitations. Specifically, the amount of preserved seeds in dung pellets is low, which restricts statistical analysis and tends to emphasize small or hard-coated seeds and vegetation fruiting season; yet this method has the highest taxonomic power; pollen preserves only in uncharred pellets, emphasizes the flowering season and has an intermediate taxonomic value; phytoliths have the lowest taxonomic value yet complete the picture of livestock feeding habits by identifying leaf and stem remains, some from domestic cereals, which went unnoticed in both seed and pollen analyses. The combined archaeobotanical reconstruction from samples of the mid-7themid-8th centuries suggests that springtime herding at Shivta was based on free-grazing of wild vegetation, supplemented by chaff and/or hay from domestic cereals. For the late-8th emid-10th century samples, phytolith and pollen reconstruction indicates autumn-winter free-grazing with no evidence of foddering. Unlike the dung pellets, macrobotanical remains in the refuse deposits included domestic as well as wild taxa, the former mainly food plants that serve for human consumption. Plant remains in these refuse deposits originate primarily from domestic trash and are only partially composed of dung remains. The significance of this study is not only in its general methodological * Corresponding author. Quaternary Science Reviews 211 (2019) 166e185 contribution to archaeobotany, but also to lasting discussions regarding the contribution of dung remains to archaeological deposits used for seed, pollen and phytolith analyses. We offer here a strong method for determining whether deposits derive from dung alone, are mixed, or absolutely do not contain dung. This has important ramifications for archaeological interpretation.
The historic event of the Late Antique Little Ice Age (LALIA) was recently identified in dozens o... more The historic event of the Late Antique Little Ice Age (LALIA) was recently identified in dozens of natural and geological climate proxies of the northern hemisphere. Although this climatic downturn was proposed as a major cause for pandemic and extensive societal upheavals in the sixth-seventh centuries CE, archaeological evidence for the magnitude of societal response to this event is sparse. This study uses ancient trash mounds as a type of proxy for identifying societal crisis in the urban domain, and employs multidisciplinary investigations to establish the terminal date of organized trash collection and high-level municipal functioning on a city-wide scale. Survey, excavation, sediment analysis, and geographic information system assessment of mound volume were conducted on a series of mounds surrounding the Byzantine urban settlement of Elusa in the Negev Desert. These reveal the massive collection and dumping of domestic and construction waste over time on the city edges. Carbon dating of charred seeds and charcoal fragments combined with ceramic analysis establish the end date of orchestrated trash removal near the mid-sixth century, coinciding closely with the beginning of the LALIA event and outbreak of the Justinian Plague in the year 541. This evidence for societal decline during the sixth century ties with other arguments for urban dysfunction across the Byzantine Le-vant at this time. We demonstrate the utility of trash mounds as sensitive proxies of social response and unravel the time-space dynamics of urban collapse, suggesting diminished resilience to rapid climate change in the frontier Negev region of the empire. ancient urban trash mounds | societal collapse | Late Antique Little Ice Age | Byzantine period | southern Levant
Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences, 2020
The topic of agricultural innovation in the Early Islamic empires has become increasingly relevan... more The topic of agricultural innovation in the Early Islamic empires has become increasingly relevant for archeology, history, and even agricultural science. The validity of AndrewWatson’s original “Islamic Green Revolution” thesis will ultimately be verified or vindicated through archaeobotanical research, as Watson himself has suggested. However, rigorous criteria for exploiting the available archaeobotanical data and testing the basis of this thesis are needed. A simple theoretical framework relating archaeobotanical data to agricultural revolution is advanced below, and methodological criteria are presented for interpreting plant species introductions from the archeological record. These are applied to archaeobotanical “first finds” from an unprecedented assemblage of mineralized plant remains from an Abbasid Jerusalem bazaar, which included the earliest evidence for eggplant (Solanum melongena) in the Levant. Finally, we advocate a regional, crop-by-crop strategy for further interdisciplinary research on the Islamic Green Revolution.
PNAS, 2020
The international scope of the Mediterranean wine trade in Late Antiquity raises important questi... more The international scope of the Mediterranean wine trade in Late Antiquity raises important questions concerning sustainability in an ancient international economy and offers a valuable historical precedent to modern globalization. Such questions involve the role of intercontinental commerce in maintaining sustainable production within important supply regions and the vulnerability of peripheral regions believed to have been especially sensitive to environmental and political disturbances. We provide archaeobo-tanical evidence from trash mounds at three sites in the central Negev Desert, Israel, unraveling the rise and fall of viticulture over the second to eighth centuries of the common era (CE). Using quantitative ceramic data obtained in the same archaeological contexts, we further investigate connections between Negev viticulture and circum-Mediterranean trade. Our findings demonstrate interrelated growth in viticulture and involvement in Med-iterranean trade reaching what appears to be a commercial scale in the fourth to mid-sixth centuries. Following a mid-sixth century peak, decline of this system is evident in the mid-to late sixth century, nearly a century before the Islamic conquest. These findings closely correspond with other archaeological evidence for social , economic, and urban growth in the fourth century and decline centered on the mid-sixth century. Contracting markets were a likely proximate cause for the decline; possible triggers include climate change, plague, and wider sociopolitical developments. In long-term historical perspective, the unprecedented commercial florescence of the Late Antique Negev appears to have been un-sustainable, reverting to an age-old pattern of smaller-scale settlement and survival-subsistence strategies within a time frame of about two centuries. Negev | Byzantine Empire | archaeobotany | protoglobalization | economic archaeology
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), 2019
The historic event of the Late Antique Little Ice Age (LALIA) was recently identified in dozens o... more The historic event of the Late Antique Little Ice Age (LALIA) was recently identified in dozens of natural and geological climate proxies of the northern hemisphere. Although this climatic downturn was proposed as a major cause for pandemic and extensive societal upheavals in the sixth–seventh centuries CE, archaeological evidence for the magnitude of societal response to this event is sparse. This study uses ancient trash mounds as a type of proxy for identifying societal crisis in the urban domain,and employs multidisciplinary investigations to establish the terminal date of organized trash collection and high-level municipal functioning on a city-wide scale. Survey, excavation, sediment analysis, and geographic information system assessment of mound volume were conducted on a series of mounds surrounding the Byzantine urban settlement of Elusa in the Negev Desert.These reveal the massive collection and dumping of domestic and construction waste over time on the city edges. Carbon dating of charred seeds and charcoal fragments combined with ceramic analysis establish the end date of orchestrated trash removal near the mid-sixth century, coinciding closely with the beginning of the LALIA event and outbreak of the Justinian Plague in the year 541.This evidence for societal decline during the sixth century ties with other arguments for urban dysfunction across the Byzantine Levant at this time. We demonstrate the utility of trash mounds as sensitive proxies of social response and unravel the time–space dynamics of urban collapse, suggesting diminished resilience to rapid climate change in the frontier Negev region of the empire.
The Late Bronze and Early Iron Ages of Southern Canaan, 2019
The Late Bronze Age was a period of massive inter-regional trade relationships in the eastern Med... more The Late Bronze Age was a period of massive inter-regional trade relationships in the eastern Mediterranean, when various staple crops and luxury food items were intensively transported. Here we present an attempt to reconstruct the food basket and agricultural economy in the region of the Shephelah during the Late Bronze Age, when the Southern Levant was ruled by Egypt through administrative and military outposts, and was active in trade with other parts of the ancient Near East, as was shown by numerous studies (e.g. Haldane 1993; Panitz-Cohen 2013: 535–54). The data of plant remains from Tel Batash/ Timnah, Tel Miqne/ Ekron and Tell es-Safi/Gath enable reconstruction of the general pattern of local diet and aspects of the local agriculture of this part of Canaan. Quantitative analysis of the plant remains suggest several local economic patterns: (i) the region was a wheat granary, i.e. it specialized in two types of wheat, which represent diversity of agricultural practices and food preferences; (ii) variation in legume species may reflect variation in specialization and foreign cultural ties within the region.
Tel Aviv, Jul 3, 2022
In the 1960s and 1970s, two copper-smelting sites (Sites 2 and 30) and a cultic place (the ‘Hatho... more In the 1960s and 1970s, two copper-smelting sites (Sites 2 and 30) and a cultic place (the ‘Hathor Shrine’, Site 200) were excavated by Beno Rothenberg’s ‘Arabah Expedition’ in the Timna Valley. They yielded rich archaeobotanical assemblages, most of which were never published. These data provide a rare opportunity to reconstruct plant food aspects of the daily lives of copper smelters. In this study, we were able to locate and identify some 10,000 plant remains, dated to the final phase of the Late Bronze Age and the early Iron Age (the 13th–9th centuries BCE). Most of the finds are fruits (grape, date, fig and olive). We suggest that this evidence represents dried or pickled fruits, consumed by the smelters throughout the day due to their calorie-rich value and ease of use. Plant-based food preparation was probably carried out elsewhere, in ephemeral tent encampments. In addition, the shrine’s plant assemblage, which includes the same species found in the smelting camps, suggests that the metalworkers used their food as an offering to the goddess Hathor (and possibly also to other deities).
Journal of human evolution, Jan 1, 2011
We describe two events of water plant extinction in the Hula Valley, northern Israel: the ancient... more We describe two events of water plant extinction in the Hula Valley, northern Israel: the ancient, natural extinction of 3 out of 14 extinct species at Gesher Benot Ya'aqov, which occurred some 800e700 k.yr., and an anthropogenic, near contemporary extinction of seven species in the artificial drainage of the Hula Lake in the 1950s. We conclude that the considerable fraction of water plants that disappeared from the Hula Valley in the EarlyeMiddle Pleistocene was the result of habitat desiccation and not global warming. Thus, there is evidence that the hominins who lived in the Hula Valley inhabited a comparatively dry place. The disappearance of water plant species was partially the result of reduced seed dispersal by birds (ornitochory) as a result of the shrinkage of water bodies and their number along the Rift Valley. We suggest that the disappearance of a group of rare, local water plants can be used as an indicator of climate drying and impacts on the local vegetation.
![Research paper thumbnail of Plant Remains from Rothenberg’s Excavations in Timna: Smelters’ Food and Cultic Offerings at the Turn of the First Millennium BCE [Tel Aviv 49-2 (2022): 230-249]](https://attachments.academia-assets.com/91664690/thumbnails/1.jpg)
](In the 1960s and 1970s, two copper-smelting sites (Sites 2 and 30) and a cultic place (the ‘Hatho... more In the 1960s and 1970s, two copper-smelting sites (Sites 2 and 30) and a cultic place (the ‘Hathor Shrine’, Site 200) were excavated by Beno Rothenberg’s ‘Arabah Expedition’ in the Timna Valley. They yielded rich archaeobotanical assemblages, most of which were never published. These data provide a rare opportunity to reconstruct plant food aspects of the daily lives of copper smelters. In this study, we were able to locate and identify some 10,000 plant remains, dated to the final phase of the Late Bronze Age and the early Iron Age (the 13th–9th centuries BCE). Most of the finds are fruits (grape, date, fig and olive). We suggest that this evidence represents dried or pickled fruits, consumed by the smelters throughout the day due to their calorie-rich value and ease of use. Plant-based food preparation was probably carried out elsewhere, in ephemeral tent encampments. In addition, the shrine’s plant assemblage, which includes the same species found in the smelting camps, suggests that the metalworkers used their food as an offering to the goddess Hathor (and possibly also to other deities).
Tel Beth-Shemesh: A Border Community in Judah, 2016
The origin of agriculture is one of the defining events of human history. Some 11-10,000 years ag... more The origin of agriculture is one of the defining events of human history. Some 11-10,000 years ago bands of hunter-gatherers started to abandon their high-mobility lifestyles in favour of growing crops, and the creation of settled, sedentary communities. This shift into an agricultural lifestyle triggered the evolution of complex political and economic structures, and technological developments, and ultimately underpinned the rise of all the great civilisations of recent humanhistory.Domestication of Plants in the Old World reviews and synthesises the information on the origins and domestication of cultivated plants in the Old World, and subsequently the spread of cultivation from southwest Asia into Asia, Europe, and north Africa, from the very earliest beginnings. This book is mainly based on detailed consideration of two lines of evidences: the plant remains found at archaeological sites, and the knowledge that has accumulated about the present-day wildrelatives of domesticated plants. This new edition revises and updates previous data and incorporates the most recent findings from molecular biology about the genetic relations between domesticated plants and their wild ancestors, and incorporates extensive new archaeological data about the spread of agriculturewithin the region. The reference list has been completely updated, as have the list of archaeological sites and the site maps.
In the 1960s and 1970s, two copper-smelting sites (Sites 2 and 30) and a cultic place (the 'Hatho... more In the 1960s and 1970s, two copper-smelting sites (Sites 2 and 30) and a cultic place (the 'Hathor Shrine', Site 200) were excavated in the Timna Valley by Beno Rothenberg's 'Arabah Expedition'. They yielded rich archaeobotanical assemblages, which apart from Site 200 were never published. This provides a rare opportunity to reconstruct plant food aspects of the daily lives of copper smelters. In this study, we were able to locate and identify some 10,000 plant remains, dating to the final phase of the Late Bronze Age and the early Iron Age (the 13th–9th centuries BCE). Since most of the finds are fruits (grape, date, fig, and olive), we suggest that this evidence represents dried or pickled fruits ("snacks"), consumed by the smelters throughout the day due to their calorie-rich value and ease of use. Plant-based food preparation, like cereals and legumes, was probably carried out elsewhere in ephemeral tent encampments. The smelter's diet components appear consistently throughout the main activity period in the valley. Likewise, the food supply chain was established by the Egyptians and continued afterward. It was based on staple food imported from afar, complemented with wild edible fruits from the surrounding area. In addition, the shrine's plant assemblage, which includes the same species found in the smelting camps, suggests that the metalworkers used their food as an offering to the goddess Hathor (and possibly also to other deities).
Domestication of Plants in the Old World, 2012
Pebble stone installations are commonly found at various Early Bronze Age sites in the southern L... more Pebble stone installations are commonly found at various Early Bronze Age sites in the southern Levant. However, their function is often assumed or unknown. Thirteen circular pebble installations were found scattered throughout a residential neighbourhood dating to the Early Bronze Age III at Tell es-Safi/Gath. Five such installations were recently studied by implementing an integrated micro-archaeological approach by which all micro-and macro-artefacts were analysed using various analytical techniques. Based on the analysis of ash-micro remains identified in the sediments, associated plant remains, flint and pottery, we suggest that these installations were used for food-processing, cooking and/or other domestic low-heat tasks. The installations first appear at Tell es-Safi/Gath during the Early Bronze Age III, and seem to disappear during later periods. The functional roles of these installations are discussed in comparison to finds from other Early Bronze Age sites, and of other food preparation traditions known from other periods and cultures.
Worldwide, human impact on natural landscapes has intensified since prehistoric times, and this i... more Worldwide, human impact on natural landscapes has intensified since prehistoric times, and this is well documented in the global archaeological record. The period between the earliest hominids and the Industrial Revolution of the late 18-19 th centuries is known as the Paleo-Anthropocene. The current study reviews key geoarchaeological, floral and faunal factors of the Paleo-Anthropocene in Israel, an area that has undergone human activities in various intensities since prehistoric times. It discusses significant human imprints on these three features in the Israeli landscape, demonstrating that its current form is almost entirely anthropogenic. Moreover, some of the past physical changes still dynamically shape Israel's zoological, archaeological and geomorphic landscape today. It is hoped that insights from this article might aid in guiding present-day management strategies of undeveloped areas through renewal of human activity guided by traditional knowledge.
Journal of Eastern Mediterranean Archaeology and Heritage Studies, 2021
The unique “Cave of the Warrior” burial, found in a Judean Desert cave and dated to the end of th... more The unique “Cave of the Warrior” burial, found in
a Judean Desert cave and dated to the end of the
The Chalcolithic period was accompanied by a large number
of grave goods made of perishable materials. It opens
up an unusual opportunity to recover aspects of the
life of an individual person. Based on a reexamination
of his personal belongings, we created a microhistory
of this individual. We show how a careful analysis of a
single-event site contributes to the interpretation and
defi nition of the archaeological record and periodization.
The individual most probably originated in the
Judean or Samarian Highlands from a settlement whose
inhabitants practiced a mixed Mediterranean economy.
The individual himself practiced pastoralism and traveled
between the highlands and the desert. The remote
location and unique burial may be seen as reflective of
stresses related to demographic and economic changes
occurring at the end of the Chalcolithic period.
The international scope of the Mediterranean wine trade in Late Antiquity raises important questi... more The international scope of the Mediterranean wine trade in Late Antiquity raises important questions concerning sustainability in an ancient international economy and offers a valuable historical precedent to modern globalization. Such questions involve the role of intercontinental commerce in maintaining sustainable production within important supply regions and the vulnerability of peripheral regions believed to have been especially sensitive to environmental and political disturbances. We provide archaeobo-tanical evidence from trash mounds at three sites in the central Negev Desert, Israel, unraveling the rise and fall of viticulture over the second to eighth centuries of the common era (CE). Using quantitative ceramic data obtained in the same archaeological contexts, we further investigate connections between Negev viticulture and circum-Mediterranean trade. Our findings demonstrate interrelated growth in viticulture and involvement in Med-iterranean trade reaching what appears to be a commercial scale in the fourth to mid-sixth centuries. Following a mid-sixth century peak, decline of this system is evident in the mid-to late sixth century, nearly a century before the Islamic conquest. These findings closely correspond with other archaeological evidence for social , economic, and urban growth in the fourth century and decline centered on the mid-sixth century. Contracting markets were a likely proximate cause for the decline; possible triggers include climate change, plague, and wider sociopolitical developments. In long-term historical perspective, the unprecedented commercial florescence of the Late Antique Negev appears to have been un-sustainable, reverting to an age-old pattern of smaller-scale settlement and survival-subsistence strategies within a time frame of about two centuries. Negev | Byzantine Empire | archaeobotany | protoglobalization | economic archaeology
This article presents a systematic methodological comparison of three archaeobotanical proxies (p... more This article presents a systematic methodological comparison of three archaeobotanical proxies (phy-toliths, pollen and seeds) applied to an assemblage of dung pellets and corresponding archaeological refuse deposits from Early Islamic contexts at the site of Shivta. We set out with three main methodo-logical questions: one, to evaluate the relative input of botanical remains from dung in refuse assemblages ; two, to evaluate each archaeobotanical dataset and to test whether they are comparable, complementary or contradictory in their interpretations from dung; and three, infer herding practices at the site during the Early Islamic period. Our findings show that ovicaprine dung accumulated in Early Islamic Shivta during at least two periods: mid-7themid-8th centuries CE, and late-8themid-10th centuries CE. Methodologically, we see incomplete and incompatible reconstructions arise when each method is considered alone, with each proxy possessing its own advantages and limitations. Specifically, the amount of preserved seeds in dung pellets is low, which restricts statistical analysis and tends to emphasize small or hard-coated seeds and vegetation fruiting season; yet this method has the highest taxonomic power; pollen preserves only in uncharred pellets, emphasizes the flowering season and has an intermediate taxonomic value; phytoliths have the lowest taxonomic value yet complete the picture of livestock feeding habits by identifying leaf and stem remains, some from domestic cereals, which went unnoticed in both seed and pollen analyses. The combined archaeobotanical reconstruction from samples of the mid-7themid-8th centuries suggests that springtime herding at Shivta was based on free-grazing of wild vegetation, supplemented by chaff and/or hay from domestic cereals. For the late-8th emid-10th century samples, phytolith and pollen reconstruction indicates autumn-winter free-grazing with no evidence of foddering. Unlike the dung pellets, macrobotanical remains in the refuse deposits included domestic as well as wild taxa, the former mainly food plants that serve for human consumption. Plant remains in these refuse deposits originate primarily from domestic trash and are only partially composed of dung remains. The significance of this study is not only in its general methodological * Corresponding author. Quaternary Science Reviews 211 (2019) 166e185 contribution to archaeobotany, but also to lasting discussions regarding the contribution of dung remains to archaeological deposits used for seed, pollen and phytolith analyses. We offer here a strong method for determining whether deposits derive from dung alone, are mixed, or absolutely do not contain dung. This has important ramifications for archaeological interpretation.
The historic event of the Late Antique Little Ice Age (LALIA) was recently identified in dozens o... more The historic event of the Late Antique Little Ice Age (LALIA) was recently identified in dozens of natural and geological climate proxies of the northern hemisphere. Although this climatic downturn was proposed as a major cause for pandemic and extensive societal upheavals in the sixth-seventh centuries CE, archaeological evidence for the magnitude of societal response to this event is sparse. This study uses ancient trash mounds as a type of proxy for identifying societal crisis in the urban domain, and employs multidisciplinary investigations to establish the terminal date of organized trash collection and high-level municipal functioning on a city-wide scale. Survey, excavation, sediment analysis, and geographic information system assessment of mound volume were conducted on a series of mounds surrounding the Byzantine urban settlement of Elusa in the Negev Desert. These reveal the massive collection and dumping of domestic and construction waste over time on the city edges. Carbon dating of charred seeds and charcoal fragments combined with ceramic analysis establish the end date of orchestrated trash removal near the mid-sixth century, coinciding closely with the beginning of the LALIA event and outbreak of the Justinian Plague in the year 541. This evidence for societal decline during the sixth century ties with other arguments for urban dysfunction across the Byzantine Le-vant at this time. We demonstrate the utility of trash mounds as sensitive proxies of social response and unravel the time-space dynamics of urban collapse, suggesting diminished resilience to rapid climate change in the frontier Negev region of the empire. ancient urban trash mounds | societal collapse | Late Antique Little Ice Age | Byzantine period | southern Levant
Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences, 2020
The topic of agricultural innovation in the Early Islamic empires has become increasingly relevan... more The topic of agricultural innovation in the Early Islamic empires has become increasingly relevant for archeology, history, and even agricultural science. The validity of AndrewWatson’s original “Islamic Green Revolution” thesis will ultimately be verified or vindicated through archaeobotanical research, as Watson himself has suggested. However, rigorous criteria for exploiting the available archaeobotanical data and testing the basis of this thesis are needed. A simple theoretical framework relating archaeobotanical data to agricultural revolution is advanced below, and methodological criteria are presented for interpreting plant species introductions from the archeological record. These are applied to archaeobotanical “first finds” from an unprecedented assemblage of mineralized plant remains from an Abbasid Jerusalem bazaar, which included the earliest evidence for eggplant (Solanum melongena) in the Levant. Finally, we advocate a regional, crop-by-crop strategy for further interdisciplinary research on the Islamic Green Revolution.
PNAS, 2020
The international scope of the Mediterranean wine trade in Late Antiquity raises important questi... more The international scope of the Mediterranean wine trade in Late Antiquity raises important questions concerning sustainability in an ancient international economy and offers a valuable historical precedent to modern globalization. Such questions involve the role of intercontinental commerce in maintaining sustainable production within important supply regions and the vulnerability of peripheral regions believed to have been especially sensitive to environmental and political disturbances. We provide archaeobo-tanical evidence from trash mounds at three sites in the central Negev Desert, Israel, unraveling the rise and fall of viticulture over the second to eighth centuries of the common era (CE). Using quantitative ceramic data obtained in the same archaeological contexts, we further investigate connections between Negev viticulture and circum-Mediterranean trade. Our findings demonstrate interrelated growth in viticulture and involvement in Med-iterranean trade reaching what appears to be a commercial scale in the fourth to mid-sixth centuries. Following a mid-sixth century peak, decline of this system is evident in the mid-to late sixth century, nearly a century before the Islamic conquest. These findings closely correspond with other archaeological evidence for social , economic, and urban growth in the fourth century and decline centered on the mid-sixth century. Contracting markets were a likely proximate cause for the decline; possible triggers include climate change, plague, and wider sociopolitical developments. In long-term historical perspective, the unprecedented commercial florescence of the Late Antique Negev appears to have been un-sustainable, reverting to an age-old pattern of smaller-scale settlement and survival-subsistence strategies within a time frame of about two centuries. Negev | Byzantine Empire | archaeobotany | protoglobalization | economic archaeology
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), 2019
The historic event of the Late Antique Little Ice Age (LALIA) was recently identified in dozens o... more The historic event of the Late Antique Little Ice Age (LALIA) was recently identified in dozens of natural and geological climate proxies of the northern hemisphere. Although this climatic downturn was proposed as a major cause for pandemic and extensive societal upheavals in the sixth–seventh centuries CE, archaeological evidence for the magnitude of societal response to this event is sparse. This study uses ancient trash mounds as a type of proxy for identifying societal crisis in the urban domain,and employs multidisciplinary investigations to establish the terminal date of organized trash collection and high-level municipal functioning on a city-wide scale. Survey, excavation, sediment analysis, and geographic information system assessment of mound volume were conducted on a series of mounds surrounding the Byzantine urban settlement of Elusa in the Negev Desert.These reveal the massive collection and dumping of domestic and construction waste over time on the city edges. Carbon dating of charred seeds and charcoal fragments combined with ceramic analysis establish the end date of orchestrated trash removal near the mid-sixth century, coinciding closely with the beginning of the LALIA event and outbreak of the Justinian Plague in the year 541.This evidence for societal decline during the sixth century ties with other arguments for urban dysfunction across the Byzantine Levant at this time. We demonstrate the utility of trash mounds as sensitive proxies of social response and unravel the time–space dynamics of urban collapse, suggesting diminished resilience to rapid climate change in the frontier Negev region of the empire.
The Late Bronze and Early Iron Ages of Southern Canaan, 2019
The Late Bronze Age was a period of massive inter-regional trade relationships in the eastern Med... more The Late Bronze Age was a period of massive inter-regional trade relationships in the eastern Mediterranean, when various staple crops and luxury food items were intensively transported. Here we present an attempt to reconstruct the food basket and agricultural economy in the region of the Shephelah during the Late Bronze Age, when the Southern Levant was ruled by Egypt through administrative and military outposts, and was active in trade with other parts of the ancient Near East, as was shown by numerous studies (e.g. Haldane 1993; Panitz-Cohen 2013: 535–54). The data of plant remains from Tel Batash/ Timnah, Tel Miqne/ Ekron and Tell es-Safi/Gath enable reconstruction of the general pattern of local diet and aspects of the local agriculture of this part of Canaan. Quantitative analysis of the plant remains suggest several local economic patterns: (i) the region was a wheat granary, i.e. it specialized in two types of wheat, which represent diversity of agricultural practices and food preferences; (ii) variation in legume species may reflect variation in specialization and foreign cultural ties within the region.
Tel Aviv, Jul 3, 2022
In the 1960s and 1970s, two copper-smelting sites (Sites 2 and 30) and a cultic place (the ‘Hatho... more In the 1960s and 1970s, two copper-smelting sites (Sites 2 and 30) and a cultic place (the ‘Hathor Shrine’, Site 200) were excavated by Beno Rothenberg’s ‘Arabah Expedition’ in the Timna Valley. They yielded rich archaeobotanical assemblages, most of which were never published. These data provide a rare opportunity to reconstruct plant food aspects of the daily lives of copper smelters. In this study, we were able to locate and identify some 10,000 plant remains, dated to the final phase of the Late Bronze Age and the early Iron Age (the 13th–9th centuries BCE). Most of the finds are fruits (grape, date, fig and olive). We suggest that this evidence represents dried or pickled fruits, consumed by the smelters throughout the day due to their calorie-rich value and ease of use. Plant-based food preparation was probably carried out elsewhere, in ephemeral tent encampments. In addition, the shrine’s plant assemblage, which includes the same species found in the smelting camps, suggests that the metalworkers used their food as an offering to the goddess Hathor (and possibly also to other deities).
Journal of human evolution, Jan 1, 2011
We describe two events of water plant extinction in the Hula Valley, northern Israel: the ancient... more We describe two events of water plant extinction in the Hula Valley, northern Israel: the ancient, natural extinction of 3 out of 14 extinct species at Gesher Benot Ya'aqov, which occurred some 800e700 k.yr., and an anthropogenic, near contemporary extinction of seven species in the artificial drainage of the Hula Lake in the 1950s. We conclude that the considerable fraction of water plants that disappeared from the Hula Valley in the EarlyeMiddle Pleistocene was the result of habitat desiccation and not global warming. Thus, there is evidence that the hominins who lived in the Hula Valley inhabited a comparatively dry place. The disappearance of water plant species was partially the result of reduced seed dispersal by birds (ornitochory) as a result of the shrinkage of water bodies and their number along the Rift Valley. We suggest that the disappearance of a group of rare, local water plants can be used as an indicator of climate drying and impacts on the local vegetation.
In the 1960s and 1970s, two copper-smelting sites (Sites 2 and 30) and a cultic place (the ‘Hatho... more In the 1960s and 1970s, two copper-smelting sites (Sites 2 and 30) and a cultic place (the ‘Hathor Shrine’, Site 200) were excavated by Beno Rothenberg’s ‘Arabah Expedition’ in the Timna Valley. They yielded rich archaeobotanical assemblages, most of which were never published. These data provide a rare opportunity to reconstruct plant food aspects of the daily lives of copper smelters. In this study, we were able to locate and identify some 10,000 plant remains, dated to the final phase of the Late Bronze Age and the early Iron Age (the 13th–9th centuries BCE). Most of the finds are fruits (grape, date, fig and olive). We suggest that this evidence represents dried or pickled fruits, consumed by the smelters throughout the day due to their calorie-rich value and ease of use. Plant-based food preparation was probably carried out elsewhere, in ephemeral tent encampments. In addition, the shrine’s plant assemblage, which includes the same species found in the smelting camps, suggests that the metalworkers used their food as an offering to the goddess Hathor (and possibly also to other deities).
Tel Beth-Shemesh: A Border Community in Judah, 2016
Detailed information on geoarchaeological, microbotanical and macrobotanical data from archaeolog... more Detailed information on geoarchaeological, microbotanical and macrobotanical data from archaeological dung pellets and sediments from the Early Islamic (7th-10th centuries CE) desert site of Shivta, Negev, Israel.
Conclusions •The soil erosion rate was relatively lower when the area was settled due to constant... more Conclusions
•The soil erosion rate was relatively lower when the area was settled due to constant housing and field
maintenance.
•Small fields contributed to lower erosion intensity and higher plant biodiversity.
•Traditional methods of land management (e.g., shallow plowing, terrace walls, grazing in forests) helped
sustain the Mediterranean landscape.
• Modern management of cultural and natural areas should rely on preservation of ancient remains as well as
the application of traditional practices.
Global agro-biodiversity has resulted from processes of plant migration and agricultural adoption... more Global agro-biodiversity has resulted from processes of plant migration and agricultural adoption. Although critically affecting current diversity, crop diffusion from antiquity to the middle-ages is poorly researched, overshadowed by studies on that of prehistoric periods. A new archaeobotanical dataset from three Negev Highland desert sites demonstrates the first millennium CE's significance for long-term agricultural change in southwest Asia. This enables evaluation of the "Islamic Green Revolution" (IGR) thesis compared to "Roman Agricultural Diffusion" (RAD), and both versus crop diffusion since the Neolithic. Among the finds, some of the earliest Solanum melongena seeds in the Levant represent the proposed IGR. Several other identified economic plants, including two unprecedented in Levantine archaeobotany (Ziziphus jujuba, Lupinus albus), implicate RAD as the greater force for crop migrations. Altogether the evidence supports a gradualist model for Holocene-wide crop .