Isotopic Evidence for Early Trade in Animals between Old Kingdom Egypt and Canaan

Isotope data from a sacrificial ass and several ovicaprines (sheep/goat) from Early Bronze Age household deposits at Tell es-Safi/Gath, Israel provide direct evidence for the movement of domestic draught/draft and husbandry animals between Old Kingdom Egypt (during the time of the Pyramids) and Early Bronze Age III Canaan (ca. 2900–2500 BCE). Vacillating, bi-directional connections between Egypt and Canaan are known throughout the Early Bronze Age, but here we provide the first concrete evidence of early trade in animals from Egypt to Canaan

The life-history of basalt ground stone tools from early urban domestic contexts: A chronicle from the EBA III of Tell es-Safi/Gath, Israel

Recent archaeological excavations at the early urban settlement of Tell es-Safi/Gath, Israel present the opportunity to reconstruct the life-history of basalt ground stone artefacts of an early urban domestic neighbourhood. Tell es-Safi/Gath is a multi-period site located on the border between the Judean foothills and the southern coastal plain of central Israel. Survey and excavations over the last two decades demonstrated that it was a major urban centre for the region during the Early Bronze Age (EBA) III. At the eastern end of the site, a neighbourhood of commoner residences (some perhaps associated with mercantile activities) have been exposed. This paper describes and analyses the basalt ground stone tools found in association with this domestic neighbourhood. It seeks to establish the nature of production, distribution, consumption, and discard associated with ground stone tools within a domestic context. The study involved several forms of analysis including typology, macroscopic observations, and excavation data. It is suggested that basalt sources from the northeastern regions of the southern Levant were exploited for the small-scale production of basalt artefacts by non-specialised craftsmen. These commodities were then transported in more or less finished form to Tell es-Safi/Gath where they were further redistributed or sold to the settlement residents. The residents of the Tell es-Safi/Gath neighbourhood utilised the basalt artefacts for traditionally domestic tasks, and ultimately intentionally discarded or recycled them in a few depositional contexts. In summary, this paper presents a unique investigation into the life-history of basalt ground stone artefacts discovered in the EB III occupation levels of Tell es-Safi/Gath. It further demonstrates the potential of ground stone tools for understanding the behaviour and daily life of non-elite people

Macroscopic Chop Mark Identification on Archaeological Bone: An Experimental Study of Chipped Stone, Ground Stone, Copper, and Bronze Axe Heads on Bone

This paper presents a new macroscopic method for identifying chop marks on archaeological faunal assemblages and highlights the major differences in the morphology of chop marks created by stone and metal axes. The method provides macroscopic criteria that aid in the identification of both complete and incomplete chop mark types as well as the raw material of the axe. Experiments with modern stone (chipped and ground) and metal (copper and bronze) axes found that the degree of fragmentation within a chop mark is related to both the width and sharpness of the axe and can be classed on a scale from 1–5 using a variety of criteria. The experiments demonstrate that sharp chipped stone axes are fragile (often break upon impact) and do not create clean and well-defined chop marks. Ground stone axes are more durable but tend to create very fragmented chop marks without a clean cut (sheared) surface. Unalloyed copper metal axes can create sheared chopped surfaces; however, the relatively soft metal creates more crushing at the point of entry than bronze axes. In contrast, bronze axes are durable and create chop marks with exceptionally low rates of fragmentation resulting in a clean-cut sheared surface that extends into the bone for more than 3 mm. The method is applied to the faunal assemblage from the Early Bronze Age site of Göltepe, Turkey to determine whether the chop marks on bones were made by stone or metal axes at this early metal processing settlement. The results suggest that many of the chop marks were made by metal implements (e.g., axes). Hence, this method provides another means to monitor the adoption rates of new raw materials at a time when both metal and stone axes coexisted

Haskel Greenfield and Lindsay Babcock

A young, healthy adult female ass was recovered under the floor of an EB III house at the site of Tell es-Safi/Gath, Israel. This animal was located within a commoner domestic neighborhood at the edge of the city. It has been suggested that this urban space may have been the location of the homes and work spaces of merchants who relied upon asses as beasts of burden. These merchants would have been involved in exchange systems across the region during the EBA. The presence of exotic trade material (e.g. ivory) and administration (e.g. cylinder seal) further supports the suggestion that this commoner neighborhood may have been inhabited by merchants involved in local and/or inter-regional exchange (Greenfield et al. 2012). Stable isotope analyses, obtained through sequential intra-tooth sampling and carbon, oxygen and strontium isotope analyses of the asses teeth, are used to evaluate this merchant hypothesis . If the hypothesis is to be supported, the isotopic signature of the ass is expected to show indicators of high mobility - with strontium isotope ratios outside the local signature and a high diversity in strontium isotope values. The isotope analysis will enable a detailed reconstruction of the life history, diet, mobility, seasonality of movement and management practices of domestic asses during the EB of the southern Levant. The importance of this taxon to the religious and economic realms of the EBA of the Near East is discussed

Gaining traction on cattle exploitation: zooarchaeological evidence from the Neolithic Western Balkans

AbstractERC Consolidator grant Stg-31371

Provisioning the Early Bronze Age City of Tell es-Safi/Gath, Israel: Isotopic Analyses of Domestic Livestock Management Patterns

It is often assumed that domestic animals in early urban Near Eastern centres either are a reflection of the local pastoral economy, or were raised at a distance by pastoral specialists. In this paper, we test these assumptions through detailed isotopic analyses (carbon, oxygen and strontium) of caprines (sheep and goat) from Tell es-Safi/Gath, an Early Bronze Age urban centre in central Israel. The isotopic analyses demonstrate that the bulk of the caprines were raised within the general vicinity of the site, suggesting that the majority of food resources were largely produced at the local level, within the territory of the city-state, and not at a distance by specialised pastoralists. It is the rare specimen that comes from a great distance and would have entered the local system through long distance trade networks