Agricultural subsistence, land use and long-distance mobility within the Early Bronze Age southern Levant: Archaeobotanical evidence from the urban site of Tell eṣ-Ṣâfī/Gath (original) (raw)
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Seeds of Civilization: Bronze Age Rural Economy and Ecology in the Southern Levant
Annals of The Association of American Geographers, 1998
This paper considers the economic and environmental impacts of emerging regional commerce that accompanied the rise and collapse of early Near Eastern urbanism. We integrate regional data on settlement and vegetation with detailed evidence of rural agriculture from two Bronze Age villages in the Jordan Valley. This approach is explicitly rural, in light of the largely rural character of Levantine civilization, and in response to more orthodox analytical perspectives focused on the first cities. Long-standing interest in the advent of agriculture now reveals that intensive localized depletion of woodland resources followed the aggregation of sedentary agrarian communities in the eighth through sixth millennia B.C., while the development of specialized pastoralism established one potential source of more extensive, subsequent defoliation. We argue, however, that regional human impacts on Levantine vegetation were triggered only with the genesis of Bronze Age cities and urbanized economies in the third and second millennia B.C. Thereafter, these regional impacts molded an ever-shifting mosaic of anthropogenic and natural landscapes. Rank-size analysis illustrates the modestly integrated, largely rural nature of Bronze Age settlement in the southern Levant. In this context, Tell Abu en-Ni'aj and Tell el-Hayyat provide appropriate examples of the resilient agrarian villages that persisted through the dramatic collapse and rebirth of early Levantine cities. Excavated plant remains and animal bones show that their inhabitants responded to the development of Bronze Age urbanism with a shift toward increased management of taxa with greater market potential, tempered by some retention of local economic autonomy. Shifts to greater sheep husbandry and, most significantly, cultivation of orchard crops like olives, figs, and grapes, signal a second wave of economic innovation that fundamentally altered the agricultural strategies of village farmers and their exploitation of the surrounding countryside. Thus the mixed cultural and natural landscapes that have supported long-term agriculture in the Levant reflect a legacy of discontinuous changes in rural economy and ecology in response to the waxing and waning of urbanized society and regional mercantile exchange.
Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports, 2019
Analysis of botanical evidence excavated from Zahrat adh-Dhra'1, Jordan elucidates intermittent settlement and agriculture on the geographical and social margins of Middle Bronze Age society in the Southern Levant. Zahrat adh-Dhra'1, lying just east of the Dead Sea, provides data from multiple discontinuous phases of occupation, particularly in comparison to evidence from the continuously occupied Middle Bronze Age village of Tell el-Hayyat in the agricultural heartland of the Jordan Valley. We focus our analysis on taxonomic frequencies and ubiquities for carbonized seeds recovered from 88 flotation samples from Zahrat adh-Dhra'1 and 152 samples from Tell el-Hayyat. Both settlements emphasized cereal cultivation, with a greater accompanying proliferation of wild and weedy taxa on the anthropogenic landscape around Tell el-Hayyat. In contrast, lower taxonomic ubiquities, many of which decline through time, reflect less consistent seed deposition and agricultural practices in accordance with episodic habitation at Zahrat adh-Dhra'1 on the more sparsely settled and impacted hinterland of the Dead Sea Plain. In concert, a suite of evidence, including dispersed architecture, Bayesian modeling of calibrated Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (AMS) ages and comparative analysis of archaeobotanical evidence, illuminates Zahrat adh-Dhra'1 as an unprecedented example of discontinuous agrarian settlement on the fringes of Levantine Middle Bronze Age urbanized society.
Journal of Landscape Ecology, 2017
The Shephelah, known as the breadbasket of the southern Levant, is one of the more extensively investigated regions of the southern Levant in terms of archaeobotanical research. However, studies dealing with agriculture are scarce in comparison to the archaeobotanical data available. The analysis of the archaeobotanical assemblage in combination with the archaeological remains from Tel Burna will contribute to the investigation of the agriculture of the Shephelah. Several seasons of excavation revealed a cultic complex dating to the Late Bronze Age and an Iron Age II settlement with various agricultural installations such as silos and wine or olive presses. In this paper, we present the agricultural features in conjunction with the systematical archaeobotanical sampling, which enables us to reconstruct the types of crop plants cultivated at the site. Grass pea seeds dominate the assemblage collected from the Late Bronze Age complex, which may point to a connection to the Aegean. The Iron Age assemblage is distinguished by a significantly broad range of crop plants which were cultivated in vicinity of the tell. The archaeological Iron Age remains indicate that the processing of secondary products such as olive oil, wine, or textiles took place within the Iron Age settlement of Tel Burna. This first comprehensive overview describes the character of agricultural production in the Late Bronze Age to Iron Age environmental and geopolitical transformations.
The Iron Age I in the Levant: The View from the North (Part I), 2019
Current archaeobotanical research plays an integral role in comprehending agricultural economies of ancient Near Eastern societies. Despite the long history of archaeological research in this region, available archaeobotanical data from Late Bronze and Early Iron Age sites in the Northern Levant are relatively scarce. This article reviews the available archaeobotanical data to identify any contrasting patterns that might allow us to determine changes in the nature of agricultural production during the Late Bronze-Iron Age transition. We also evaluate the stable carbon isotopic evidence from Near Eastern sites to explore any recognizable trends toward increasing aridity in the region. By integrating new archaeobotanical and stable carbon isotope results from Tell Tayinat, we want to contribute to a more complete picture of the regional patterns of crop husbandry in the Levant. Crop data demonstrates a renewed interest in water-demanding crops during the earlier Iron Age. In conjunction, stable isotope data for Tayinat and many other sites show only minimal stress conditions related to water availability.
This paper reviews the archaeobotanical record of the transition from foraging to farming in the southern Levant. The concise presentation of the published botanical evidence follows a critical assessment of: (a) the nature of Epipalaeolithic plant management strategies, (b) the place of the southern Levant in the polycentric development of Near Eastern plant cultivation and domestication, and (c) region-specific pathways for the emergence of domesticated crop ‘‘packages’’. Some inferences are drawn and suggestions are made concerning the potential contribution of archaeobotanical research to questions of broader archaeological significance about socio-economic change in the southern Levant during the Pre-pottery Neolithic.
Archaeology & History in the Lebanon, 2019
Current archaeobotanical research plays an integral role in comprehending agricultural economies of ancient Near Eastern societies. Despite the long history of archaeological research in this region, available archaeobotanical data from Late Bronze and Early Iron Age sites in the Northern Levant are relatively scarce. This article reviews the available archaeobotanical data to identify any contrasting patterns that might allow us to determine changes in the nature of agricultural production during the Late Bronze-Iron Age transition. We also evaluate the stable carbon isotopic evidence from Near Eastern sites to explore any recognizable trends toward increasing aridity in the region. By integrating new archaeobotanical and stable carbon isotope results from Tell Tayinat, we want to contribute to a more complete picture of the regional patterns of crop husbandry in the Levant. Crop data demonstrates a renewed interest in water-demanding crops during the earlier Iron Age. In conjunction, stable isotope data for Tayinat and many other sites show only minimal stress conditions related to water availability.
Complex Ecologies: Micro-Evidence for Storage Landscapes in Early Bronze Age Lebanon
2019
This dissertation presents the results of an archaeological investigation into the environmental strategies of emergent aggregated societies in coastal Lebanon over the course of the Early Bronze Age (c. 3200-2400 BCE). The Early Bronze Age marked not only the rise of large-scale urbanized polities in neighboring regions of Mesopotamia and, to a lesser extent, the Southern Levant, but it took place during the dramatic climate variability of the Middle Holocene. This dissertation uses the analysis of microbotanical and ground stone tool data to assess agricultural strategies, land use, and plant processing technologies at two settlements along the Lebanese littoral during this time of political and climatic upheaval. By comparing phytolith data, stone tool use-wear and microbotanical residues from grinding tools from the sites of Sidon and Tell Fadous-Kfarabida, this project reconstructs local plant and stone environments and the choices that populations were making about those resources over time. It concludes that selectivity between conservative and innovative plant management technologies allowed these settlements to maintain small-scale local networks built into the landscape and to participate with, while resisting incorporation into, growing urban and state economies nearby. i Table of Contents List of Figures .
2021
The term “Levant” describes the eastern Mediterranean region which can be divided into the Northern Levant (parts of Turkey and Syria), the Central Levant (Lebanon) and the Southern Levant (Israel, Palestine and Jordan). With regard to a combined chronology of the Levant, the Bronze Age includes the Early Bronze Age (ca. 3700-2300 BCE), the Early Bronze Age IV / Intermediate Bronze Age (ca. 2300-2000 BCE), the Middle Bronze Age (ca. 2000-1550 BCE) and the Late Bronze Age (ca. 1550-1200 BCE). During this long time span of approximately 2700 years major historical and cultural developments took place, namely: the first rise of urbanism (Early Bronze Age I; ca. 3700-3000 BCE), the evolvement of the first urban societies (Early Bronze Age II-III; ca. 3000-2300 BCE), processes of de-urbanization during an intermediate period (ca. 2300-2000 BCE), the rise of flourishing city states (Middle Bronze Age; ca. 2000-1500 BCE) and the transformation of the city state system into a system of city states under vassalage of great empires (Late Bronze Age; ca. 1500-1200 BCE). Agriculture was always the fundamental base of all Bronze Age societies in the Levant, and the agricultural dynamics during these 2700 years were closely connected to the historical and socio-cultural developments in the Levant and in its various sub-regions.
Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences, 2023
Recent excavations at the site of Tel Kabri have brought some extraordinary findings, including the earliest wine cellar in the ancient Near East discovered in 2013. During these excavations, archaeobotanical samples were collected continuously and then processed in 2019. The archaeobotanical studies focus on the Middle Bronze Age palace in Area DW and the Early Bronze Age domestic deposits in Area L. The results confirm the different nature of the two contexts. Legumes form a large portion of the crop remains in the Early Bronze Age Area L: Lathyrus sativus (grass pea), Vicia faba var. minor (faba bean), and Lens culinaris (lentil), all showing no drought stress and similar growing conditions in terms of moisture availability, as indicated by stable carbon isotope measurements. For Area L, several wild seeds have been identified to represent weeds of cereal crops, whereas Area DW is strongly affected by small wild seeds that entered the sediments as modern contaminants. Fruit crops are present in both assemblages with Olea europaea (olive), representing the most ubiquitous taxon, and Vitis vinifera (grape), with most of its pips found mineralized. The identified remains also include cereal crops, primarily Triticum dicoccum (emmer), which appears cultivated under exceptionally dry conditions. The stable nitrogen values for emmer also raised some questions regarding the growing location and cultivation strategy. Correspondence analysis has been applied, comparing the archaeobotanical assemblages of Tel Kabri within the wider geographical and chronological Levantine context and determining their placement in sub-regional patterns.
Supra-regional trade networks and the economic potential of Iron Age II sites in the southern Levant
Palaeoclimate proxy data from different locations in Israel indicate relatively dry conditions with environmental collapse at the end of the Bronze Age and during the subsequent Iron Age. The historical and archaeological evidence, however, supports the existence of a flourishing economy in the Levant and involvement in supraregional trade networks, which were heavily based on agricultural production. Local environmental data may help to clarify how these seemingly contradictory patterns can be explained. We investigate Iron Age II plant remains from Tel Burna for their stable carbon isotope signatures. Our data indicate extremely favorable conditions for crop growth during the Iron Age II and, in particular, high soil moisture availability, which would have allowed surplus production of a large number of crop species, including olives, grapes and flax. Besides contributing to our knowledge of the economic preconditions at a time of supra-regional trade networks, our results demonstrate the necessity of using independent tools such as stable carbon isotope analysis on archaeobotanical remains at the site-individual level for understanding the layout of complex economic systems in geographically and politically diversified landscapes