Boaz Langford

The Earliest Lead Object in the Levant

In the deepest section of a large complex cave in the northern Negev desert, Israel, a bi-conical lead object was found logged onto a wooden shaft. Associated material remains and radiocarbon dating of the shaft place the object within the Late Chalcolithic period, at the late 5th millennium BCE. Based on chemical and lead isotope analysis, we show that this unique object was made of almost pure metallic lead, likely smelted from lead ores originating in the Taurus range in Anatolia. Either the finished object, or the raw material, was brought to the southern Levant, adding another major component to the already-rich Late Chalcolithic metallurgical corpus known to-date. The paper also discusses possible uses of the object, suggesting that it may have been used as a spindle whorl, at least towards its deposition.

The Judean Desert—The Major Hypogene Cave Region of the Southern Levant

The Judean Desert in eastern Israel consists of a Late Cretaceous epicontinental carbonate terrain formed at the interface between the Neotethys Ocean and the Gondwanian African-Arabian plate. Various rock types were deposited through fluctuations between marine and continental environments due to ingressions and regressions. Orogenic folding of the Syrian Arc fold system occurred between the Late Cretaceous and the Neogene. The folds formed a barrier for deep flowing groundwater, which upwelled along the SE flank of the folds. Possibly mixing with local confined circulation, the hypogene flow created maze caves at the top of the Late Cretaceous limestone, under the confinement of thick chalk, and marl successions. The larger caves are up to 3.5-km-long 2D mazes, less commonly with some additional tiers. Speleogenesis occurred most likely during the Oligocene, when far-field recharge could reach the Judean Desert. During the Neogene, the Dead Sea transform has dissected the region, forming a deep endorheic depression at the eastern border of the Judean Desert. This was followed by the lowering of the water table and related dewatering of the caves. Fault escarpments and downcutting canyons have dissected the caves, forming the present entrances. The caves are mostly dry, with rare speleothems. Gypsum rinds indicate that hydrogen sulfide and sulfuric acid took part in speleogenesis.

Distancing the Dead: Late Chalcolithic Burials in Large Maze Caves in the Negev Desert, Israel

The Late Chalcolithic of the southern Levant (ca. 4500–3800 b.c.e.) is known for its extensive use of the subterranean sphere for mortuary practices. Numerous natural and hewn caves, constituting formal extramural cemeteries, were used as secondary burial localities for multiple individuals, refecting and reaffirming social order and/or communal identity and ideology. Recently, two large complex caves located in the northern Negev Highlands, south of the densely settled Late Chalcolithic province of the Beersheba Valley, yielded skeletal evidence for secondary interment of select individuals accompanied by sets of material culture that share distinct similarities. The observed patterns suggest that the interred individuals belonged to sedentary communities engaging in animal husbandry, and they were deliberately distanced after their death, both above-ground (into the desert) and underground (deep inside subterranean mazes), deviating from common cultural practices.