The rise and fall of viticulture in the Late Antique Negev Highlands reconstructed from archaeobotanical and ceramic data.

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 archaeobotanical 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 Mediterranean 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 unsustainable, reverting to an age-old pattern of smaller-scale settlement and survival-subsistence strategies within a time frame of about two centuries

Elusa. From Nabatean Trading Post to Late Antique Desert Metropolis: Results of the 2015−2020 Seasons

In Roman to late Byzantine times, Elusa (Hebrew: Haluza, Arabic: al-Khalasa) was the most important settlement in the Negev region and its only proper city. Identified in 1838 by E. Robinson, it was subsequently visited by numerous researchers. The most important investigations took place in the form of surveys and excavations from the 1970s until 2001, during which, among other things, the only theatre in the region and the city’s cathedral were uncovered. However, despite several research projects, very basic information on the city and its genesis, history and structure has been lacking until now. Since 2015, this has been the focus of an international cooperation project that is investigating these fundamental questions using a multi-method approach. The focus here is also on the role of the city in the region, as it appears as an economic, administrative, cultural and religious centre. Particular emphasis is placed on the city’s flourishing in light of its precarious natural location within the Negev Desert. The article reflects the combined findings of remote sensing, archaeological survey, geophysical prospection, targeted excavations, geochemical soil sampling and extensive find material analyses and thus provides an unprecedented insight into the character and development of ancient Elusa.In Roman to late Byzantine times, Elusa (Hebrew: Haluza, Arabic: al-Khalasa) was the most important settlement in the Negev region and its only proper city. Identified in 1838 by E. Robinson, it was subsequently visited by numerous researchers. The most important investigations took place in the form of surveys and excavations from the 1970s until 2001, during which, among other things, the only theatre in the region and the city’s cathedral were uncovered. However, despite several research projects, very basic information on the city and its genesis, history and structure has been lacking until now. Since 2015, this has been the focus of an international cooperation project that is investigating these fundamental questions using a multi-method approach. The focus here is also on the role of the city in the region, as it appears as an economic, administrative, cultural and religious centre. Particular emphasis is placed on the city’s flourishing in light of its precarious natural location within the Negev Desert. The article reflects the combined findings of remote sensing, archaeological survey, geophysical prospection, targeted excavations, geochemical soil sampling and extensive find material analyses and thus provides an unprecedented insight into the character and development of ancient Elusa

Stables in the Negev: an overview

The Negev region of southern Israel enjoyed a florescence of urbanization in the Roman and Byzantine periods (1st-7th century CE). The region was controlled by the Nabataeans emanating from Petra between the 4th century BCE and the Roman annexation of Nabataea in 106 CE. Initially, the Negev served as a buffer between Petra and the coastal region, and important trade routes ran through the region, particularly the «Incense Road» that led to the Nabataean’s main port at Gaza. The Nabataeans tr..

Problems and solutions in dating Nabataean pottery of the post-annexation period

In the desert regions of the Southern Levant, the dating of Nabataean sherds and vessels is a critical factor in determining the dates of archaeological strata, architecture, and even entire sites. In recent years, archaeologists working at Petra and related sites have tended to date most Nabataean sherds and vessels to the 1st century CE based on the proposed typo-chronology of the Swiss–Liechtenstein excavations at al-Zantur in Petra, published by Stephan G. Schmid (2000). Accepted typo-chronologies must withstand scrutiny and can override imposed historical frameworks. However, an uncritical reliance on the ez-Zantur chronology has created an artificial gap in the material record of Petra and other Nabataean sites in the post-annexation period, that is to say, the 2nd and 3rd century CE. This paper provides a critique of the Nabataean fine-ware typo-chronology from ez-Zantur, based on finds from other excavations and sites, and proposes a revised chronology in which the production of Nabataean pottery, including painted and unpainted fine wares, unguentaria and lamps, continues unabated throughout the Middle Roman period until sometime in the first half of the 3rd century CE. The revised typo-chronology evinces a robust period of Nabataean culture at Petra and other related sites under Roman rule, like that found in other cities of the Roman East

Unprecedented yet gradual nature of first millennium CE intercontinental crop plant dispersal revealed in ancient Negev desert refuse.

Peer reviewed: TrueGlobal agro-biodiversity has resulted from processes of plant migration and agricultural adoption. Although critically affecting current diversity, crop diffusion from Classical 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 during and since the Neolithic. Among the findings, some of the earliest aubergine (Solanum melongena) seeds in the Levant represent the proposed IGR. Several other identified economic plants, including two unprecedented in Levantine archaeobotany-jujube (Ziziphus jujuba/mauritiana) and white lupine (Lupinus albus)-implicate RAD as the greater force for crop migrations. Altogether the evidence supports a gradualist model for Holocene-wide crop diffusion, within which the first millennium CE contributed more to global agricultural diversity than any earlier period.As part of a Ph.D. dissertation conducted at Bar-Ilan University, this research was supported by the Bar-Ilan Doctoral Fellowships of Excellence Program, the Rottenstreich Fellowship of the Israel Council for Higher Education, and the Molcho fund for agricultural research in the Negev (awarded to D.F.). As part of the NEGEVBYZ project, this research was also supported by the European Research Council under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme (grant 648427) and the Israel Science Foundation (grant 340-14) (awarded to G.B.O). Manuscript preparation was further supported by a Newton International Fellowship of the British Academy (NIF23/100633) and a Marie S. Curie International Fellowship of the European Commission’s Horizon 2020 Framework Programme (Project CroProLITE, no. 101025677), awarded to D.F

Byzantine-Early Islamic resource management detected through micro-geoarchaeological investigations of trash mounds (Negev, Israel).

Sustainable resource management is of central importance among agrarian societies in marginal drylands. In the Negev Desert, Israel, research on agropastoral resource management during Late Antiquity emphasizes intramural settlement contexts and landscape features. The importance of hinterland trash deposits as diachronic archives of resource use and disposal has been overlooked until recently. Without these data, assessments of community-scale responses to societal, economic, and environmental disruption and reconfiguration remain incomplete. In this study, micro-geoarchaeological investigations were conducted on trash mound features at the Byzantine-Early Islamic sites of Shivta, Elusa, and Nesanna to track spatiotemporal trends in the use and disposal of critical agropastoral resources. Refuse derived sediment deposits were characterized using stratigraphy, micro-remains (i.e., livestock dung spherulites, wood ash pseudomorphs, and plant phytoliths), and mineralogy by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. Our investigations detected a turning point in the management of herbivore livestock dung, a vital resource in the Negev. We propose that the scarcity of raw dung proxies in the studied deposits relates to the use of this resource as fuel and agricultural fertilizer. Refuse deposits contained dung ash, indicating the widespread use of dung as a sustainable fuel. Sharply contrasting this, raw dung was dumped and incinerated outside the village of Nessana. We discuss how this local shift in dung management corresponds with a growing emphasis on sedentised herding spurred by newly pressed taxation and declining market-oriented agriculture. Our work is among the first to deal with the role of waste management and its significance to economic strategies and urban development during the late Roman Imperial Period and Late Antiquity. The findings contribute to highlighting top-down societal and economic pressures, rather than environmental degradation, as key factors involved in the ruralisation of the Negev agricultural heartland toward the close of Late Antiquity