Lidar Sapir-Hen

Ancient DNA and Population Turnover in Southern Levantine Pigs- Signature of the Sea Peoples Migration?

Near Eastern wild boars possess a characteristic DNA signature. Unexpectedly, wild boars from Israel have the DNA sequences of European wild boars and domestic pigs. To understand how this anomaly evolved, we sequenced DNA from ancient and modern pigs from Israel. Pigs from Late Bronze Age (until ca. 1150 BCE) in Israel shared haplotypes of modern and ancient Near Eastern pigs. European haplotypes became dominant only during the Iron Age (ca. 900 BCE). This raises the possibility that European pigs were brought to the region by the Sea Peoples who migrated to the Levant at that time. Then, a complete genetic turnover took place, most likely because of repeated admixture between local and introduced European domestic pigs that went feral. Severe population bottlenecks likely accelerated this process. Introductions by humans have strongly affected the phylogeography of wild animals, and interpretations of phylogeography based on modern DNA alone should be taken with caution.

The Introduction of Domestic Camels to the Southern Levant: Evidence from the Aravah Valley

Abstract It was recently suggested that the introduction of the camel to the southern Levant occurred in the early Iron Age (late 2nd-early 1st millennia BCE). Our study of faunal remains from Iron Age sites at Timna, together with previous studies of Late Bronze and Iron Age sites at Timna and Wadi Faynan, enable us to pinpoint this event more precisely. The new evidence indicates that the first significant appearance of camels in the Aravah Valley was not earlier than the last third of the 10th century BCE. This date accords with data from the Negev and the settled lands further to the north when the low chronology is applied to the early Iron IIA.

Environmental and Historical Impacts on Long Term Animal Economy: The Southern Levant in the Late Bronze and Iron Ages

Based on a comprehensive database of livestock frequencies and mortality profiles and on high-resolution relative chronologies, we examined synchronically and diachronically conventional assumptions regarding animal husbandry in the southern Levant in the Late Bronze and Iron Ages and arrived at the following conclusions: 1) A recent study suggests that animal economy in these periods was based on strategies of survival and self-sufficiency. We counter this claim and demonstrate how local self-sufficiency was replaced by specialized economies beginning in Iron Age iib. 2) Contrary to past assumptions, we argue that changes in animal-husbandry strategies were dictated by historical factors rather than by environmental ones. The main shift in livestock husbandry reflects enhanced social complexity during a period of transformation in the territorial-political system from local kingdoms to imperial rule.

The socioeconomic status of Iron Age metalworkers: animal economy in the "Slaves Hill", Timna, Israel

The popular image of metalworking sites in desert settings envisages armies of slaves engaged in back-breaking labour. This is in conflict with ethnographic evidence indicating that skilled specialist metalworkers are often accorded high social status. This study approaches that contradiction directly by studying the remains of domesticated food animals from domestic and industrial contexts at Timna in southern Israel. The authors demonstrate that the higher-value meat cuts come from industrial contexts, where they were associated with the specialist metalworkers, rather than the ‘domestic’ contexts occupied by lower status workers engaged in support roles. It is suggested that the pattern documented here could also have been a feature of early metalworking sites in other times and places.

Human Hunting and Nascent Animal Management at Middle Pre-Pottery Neolithic Yiftah'el, Israel.

The current view for the southern Levant is that wild game hunting was replaced by herd management over the course of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B period, but there is significant debate over the timing, scale and origin of this transition. To date, most relevant studies focus either on wild game exploitation in the periods prior to domestication or on classic markers of domestication of domestic progenitor species over the course of the PPNB. We studied the faunal remains from the 2007–2008 excavations of the Middle PPNB (MPPNB) site of Yiftah’el, Northern Israel. Our analysis included a close examination of the timing and impact of the trade-off between wild game and domestic progenitor taxa that reflects the very beginning of this critical transition in the Mediterranean zone of the southern Levant. Our results reveal a direct trade-off between the intensive hunting of wild ungulates that had been staples for millennia, and domestic progenitor taxa. We suggest that the changes in wild animal use are linked to a region-wide shift in the relationship between humans and domestic progenitor species including goat, pig and cattle.

Food, Economy, and Culture at Tel Dor, Israel: A Diachronic Study of Faunal Remains from 15 Centuries of Occupation

This paper presents the results of a study of the cultural and economic changes from a longue durée perspective as reflected in the animal remains from a nearly continuous occupation spanning the early Iron Age through the Roman period at Tel Dor, a harbor town on Israels Carmel coast. Such long-term zooarchaeological analyses are currently rare. Focusing on the choice of food, as well as on animal exploitation methods/strategies, the paper asks whether changes through time can be explained in economic or cultural terms, whether they can be correlated with changes in the sites material culture, whether they reflect some change in the sites population, or should be explained in terms of the adoption of new cultural norms. The results demonstrate that during a millennium and a half of Dors existence, there was very little change in most patterns of animal exploitation and consumption. The only apparent change was in the increase in pig remains between the early Iron Age and the Hellenistic and Roman periods. In view of the constancy in all other exploitation characteristics, and in light of other data from Dor, the paper suggests that this change does not reflect a change in the sites population but rather the adoption of new norms.

Reconstructing Ancient Israel: Integrating Macro- and Micro-archaeology

The study of ancient Israel’s texts and history has been a keystone of European scholarship since the Enlightenment. From the beginning of the 19th century, biblical exegesis contributed impressively to our understanding of these topics. Biblical archaeology joined in about a century later and provided critical evidence for the material culture of ancient Israel, shedding new light on its history. Yet, until recent years (and in certain circles up until today) biblical archaeology was dominated by a conservative interpretation of the texts and was not given a true independent role in recon-

Animal Economy in a Temple City and Its Countryside: Iron Age Jerusalem as a Case Study

The dramatic growth of Jerusalem in the Iron Age IIB–C raises questions regarding subsistence and relations with the citys rural hinterland. Studies of animal economy can shed light on these questions. Here, we present results from the zooarchaeological investigation of two sites: the Western Wall Plaza in Jerusalem and Tel Moza, located a few kilometers to the west of the capital. We also compare our finds to previous results from several locations within Jerusalem. We find that while the Western Wall Plazas inhabitants focused on meat consumption and did not engage in actual herding, the inhabitants of Tel Moza focused on agriculture and producing caprines secondary products, probably supplying sheep and cattle to Jerusalem. Within Jerusalem, people living close to the Temple Mount showed a higher economic standing than those in a neighborhood on the southeastern slope of the “City of David” ridge. The higher-status neighborhoods seem to have received meat through a redistribution mechanism from the temple. These results enable us to gain several insights into rural-urban relationships and sociopolitical mechanisms in the Iron Age Levant.

The Emergence of Animal Management in the Southern Levant

Our compilation of zooarchaeological data from a series of important archaeological sites spanning the Epipaleolithic through Pre-Pottery Neolithic B periods in the Mediterranean Hills of the southern Levant contributes to major debates about the beginnings of ungulate management in Southwest Asia. The data support an onset of ungulate management practices by the Early PPNB (10,500–10,000 cal. BP), more than 500 years earlier than previously thought for this region. There is a clear developmental connection between reduced hunting intensity and the uptake of ungulate management, confirming that this process began in response to local, density-dependent demographic factors. The early process of goat domestication in the southern Levant appears to have been overwhelmingly local. This may have been true for cattle and pigs as well. Nevertheless, the loose synchrony of animal management trends across Southwest Asia was undoubtedly enabled by large-scale social networks that transmitted knowledge. The results add to growing evidence that animal management processes followed multiple regional evolutionary pathways within the Fertile Crescent.

The Faunal Evidence from Early Roman Jerusalem: The People behind the Garbage

This is a study of the animal remains from the Early Roman period landfill in the “City of David” ridge, the largest assemblage of fauna published from Jerusalem. The research includes both a zooarchaeological and taphonomical study and has a twofold objective: first, to understand landfill site formation processes and the activities related to it; and second, to examine the social and religious identity of the inhabitants of the different sectors of Jerusalem’s ‘Lower City’. The results are assessed in light of previously investigated contemporaneous faunal assemblages that originated in other parts of the city, as well as from the northern part of the same landfill, which is closer to the Temple Mount. The study demonstrates that garbage was dispatched to the city dump in an organized manner. It identifies the producers of the waste as Jewish. It also establishes that the portion of landfill excavated and published here includes garbage from daily secular activities rather than from cultic endeavours, to differ from previously excavated assemblages from the same landfill, which is composed of refuse originating from ritual pursuits.