Early iron production in the Levant: Smelting and smithing at early 1st millennium BC Tell Hammeh, Jordan, and Tel Beth-Shemesh, Israel

The use of iron in the Near East is first attested by the sporadic occurrence of iron artefacts during the Bronze Age. By the end of the Late Bronze Age, however, use of iron metal gradually increases to such a level that one can assume a reasonably regular production of iron metal from terrestrial ores by smelting. However, very few iron metallurgical workshops or installations have been discovered in the Near East thus far. Of these, most are apparently related to secondary smithing, and very few if any have clear evidence for iron smelting. Recent fieldwork at Tell Hammeh, Jordan, identified a major iron smelting operation dated to ca. 930 Cal BC. Excavations in 2001 and 2003 at Tel Beth- Shemesh, Israel, uncovered remains of a full-scale smithing operation, dating to ca. 900 Cal BC. Dedicated excavation techniques were developed and refined for both sites, aiming at optimal recovery of both technological and archaeological information. The excavated materials were comprehensively analysed using relevant scientific analytical techniques, which included the development and application of a calibration method for quantitative bulk chemical analysis of iron- rich materials by XRF. Combining laboratory data and fieldwork, this thesis explores the particular lime- rich and iron-oxide-poor nature of the Hammeh slags as a function of the composition of the local ore and the sacrificial contribution of technical ceramics (tuyeres and furnace wall). Furthermore, it compares the smelting operations at Tell Hammeh with the smithing at Tel Beth-Shemesh, both in terms of their respective archaeological contexts as well as of their technological residues. This aims at the identification and reconstruction of the chaine operatoire of the technologies at both sites. The reconstructed technological processes are discussed in terms of their place in the socio-economic and cultural context of the early first millennium BC of the Levant. Beyond providing new data about early iron metallurgy, the integrated archaeological and laboratory approach, the excavation methods applied, the analytical methodology, as well as the archaeometric data presented here may serve as a model for the excavation, interpretation, or comparison of future (and previous) discoveries of iron metallurgy in the Near East

MOESM1 of Distribution of new satellites and simple sequence repeats in annual and perennial Glycine species

Additional file 1. Table S1. Sequence of the primers used in the study

MOESM2 of Distribution of new satellites and simple sequence repeats in annual and perennial Glycine species

Additional file 2. Table S2. Sequence of repeat sequences and probes used in the study

Seed and plant traits for the plant materials used.

<p>Seed and plant traits for the plant materials used.</p

The phenotype of seeds used for the map-based cloning of the large-grain trait.

<p>Row a, a T₂ large-grain plant–the female parental line; row b, TNG67 –the variety used to generate TRIM population; row c, TK9 –the male parental line; row d, large-grain F₂ plant, row e, wild-type F₂ plant; row f, T₁c plant. n = 10 seeds each row. Scale bar: 1 cm.</p

The introgression map of an <i>indica</i>-type genome into all chromosomes.

<p>Introgression into the 12 chromosomes of the TRIM line M0028590. Yellow bar is the TNG67 chromosome, and the numbers indicate the Mb in the chromosome. The introgression regions are revealed by SNPs of 7 plants, including 3 T₁ plants, 2 T₂ plants and 2 T₃ plants. Gradient orange bars, regions with heterozygous SNPs; red bars, regions with homozygous SNPs.</p

Introgression in M0028590 offspring.

<p>The Integrative Genomics Viewer (IGV) view of aligned reads. Panel a. A 100-kb region in chromosome 2 (35,200,001–35,300,000). The paired read sequencing was performed on an Illumina platform and the alignments were toward the Nipponbare IRGSP 1.0. The x-axis is the thickness of the read (shown in log scale), with the gray bar for matched reads (compared to Nipponbare); the mismatched reads for A are in green, G in orange, C in blue, and T in red. Rows a to f, Tainung 67 (TNG67), M0028590T₁b, M0028590T₃a, a T₂ plant of M0048349, a T₂ plant of M0053677, Taichungsen 17 (TCS17). Scale bar: 10 kb. Panel b. IGV view of aligned reads of a 10-kb region of chromosome 2 (35,420,601–35,431,600). Scale bar: 1 kb.</p