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Mammalian remains from areas H, L, P and Q
... The presence of caprines, cattle, donkey, camel and pig in the assemblage is typical for Early Islamic sites in the southern Levant (e.g. Horwitz and Dahan 1996;Cope 1999;Horwitz 2006;Sade 2005). Although pig presence in the assemblage is not expected, given the site occupation by Muslims at the time and the religious prohibition of its consumption, low frequency of pig remains was also found in Yoqne'am, where they constitute 2% of the identified assemblage (Horwitz and Dahan 1996), and high frequency of pigs was reported from Beth She'an (Horwitz 2006) and Caesarea (Cope 1999). ...
... Horwitz and Dahan 1996;Cope 1999;Horwitz 2006;Sade 2005). Although pig presence in the assemblage is not expected, given the site occupation by Muslims at the time and the religious prohibition of its consumption, low frequency of pig remains was also found in Yoqne'am, where they constitute 2% of the identified assemblage (Horwitz and Dahan 1996), and high frequency of pigs was reported from Beth She'an (Horwitz 2006) and Caesarea (Cope 1999). The presence of various body parts of animals in the assemblage at an adult age, suggests livestock were raised and slaughtered on site after being exploited for various products, except for the pig which was butchered young and exploited for meat alone. ...
... The presence of caprines, cattle, donkey, camel and pig in the assemblage is typical for Early Islamic sites in the southern Levant (e.g. Horwitz and Dahan 1996;Cope 1999;Horwitz 2006;Sade 2005). Although pig presence in the assemblage is not expected, given the site occupation by Muslims at the time and the religious prohibition of its consumption, low frequency of pig remains was also found in Yoqne'am, where they constitute 2% of the identified assemblage (Horwitz and Dahan 1996), and high frequency of pigs was reported from Beth She'an (Horwitz 2006) and Caesarea (Cope 1999). ...
... Horwitz and Dahan 1996;Cope 1999;Horwitz 2006;Sade 2005). Although pig presence in the assemblage is not expected, given the site occupation by Muslims at the time and the religious prohibition of its consumption, low frequency of pig remains was also found in Yoqne'am, where they constitute 2% of the identified assemblage (Horwitz and Dahan 1996), and high frequency of pigs was reported from Beth She'an (Horwitz 2006) and Caesarea (Cope 1999). The presence of various body parts of animals in the assemblage at an adult age, suggests livestock were raised and slaughtered on site after being exploited for various products, except for the pig which was butchered young and exploited for meat alone. ...
In: Tal, O., Taxel, I., Jackson-Tal, R. Khirbet al-Ḥadra: More on Refuse Disposal Practices in Early Islamic Palestine and Their Socio-Economic Implications
In this paper we present the analysis of faunal ecofacts retrieved from well-secured features during recent excavation work carried out in 2019 and 2020 by the German-Israeli Tell Iẓṭabba Excavation Project in the Seleucid-founded town of Nysa-Scythopolis. Founded under Antiochus IV Epiphanes (175–164 BCE) and destroyed by the Hasmonaeans in the later years of John Hyrcanus (in 107 BCE). The site offers a unique opportunity for observing the dietary habits of its Foreign Hellenistic settlers: the well-secured Seleucid assemblages, together with their varied provenance, offer new information on the Hellenistic southern Levant via a unique case-study employing high-resolution systematic analysis. The faunal assemblage from Tell Iẓṭabba (Nysa) provides a clearer picture of dietary practices in Hellenistic Palestine, focusing on the settlers at the site. By presenting the consumption patterns, based on animal bones and mollusks unearthed from the site’s layer of Hellenistic occupation, we offer a comprehensive overview of the meat sources of food at the site and present a distinct cultural practice which is markable different from regional Levantine dietary customs.
Archaeological faunal and botanical remains are often treated and published separately to understand past subsistence practices. This distinction is an arbitrary one based on methodological differences, especially since we know from ethnological sources that animal husbandry and crop cultivation are usually interdependent in agricultural systems. Here, we use correspondence, detrended correspondence, and canonical correspondence analyses to integrate these different lines of evidence. We customise this method by:
• Adjusting criteria to select and prepare data for integration
• Including independent parameters such as chronology and mean annual precipitation to study relationships
• Presenting additional visualisations of data to aid interpretation
The customised method we present can be applied to any time period, geographical region or research question, as long as botanical and faunal data are available. By analysing these data in an integrative way, we can improve our knowledge of subsistence and agriculture, which in turn can provide a context to better understand social and political changes in past societies.
Subsistence patterns during the Early Bronze Age I through the Iron Age II (3600-586 BCE) are the topic of many archaeobotanical and zooarchaeological studies. The results of these two disciplines are usually published separately, depriving us of an all-encompassing view of subsistence and agriculture during this time period since people did not solely make use of animal or plant products. In this paper, our goal is to integrate faunal and botanical lines of evidence and study developments in subsistence using multivariate statistics. By analysing individual and integrated datasets of botanical and faunal remains, we aim to better understand the role of diverse variables, such as chronology, mean annual precipitation, and elevation within the composition of our datasets. We see chronological differences, a distinction between sites at higher (400–600 mm) and lower (200–400 mm) precipitation ranges and differences between sites at different elevations (0–100 m and 500–600 m). We also highlight methodological issues intrinsic to differences in genesis and quantification of archaeobotanical and zooarchaeological datasets. We conclude that to obtain a complete understanding of subsistence during the Bronze and Iron Age in the Southern Levant, archaeobotanists and zooarchaeologists need to work on integrating their data on a site-specific level. This will allow us to obtain a holistic understanding of subsistence and agricultural practices on both a site and regional level and allow us to develop a stronger framework for understanding social and political developments that occurred during these time periods.
The contents of a small trash pit discovered in the recent excavations in Hellenistic Philoteria (Tel Bet Yeraḥ/Khirbet el-Kerak) offer a unique opportunity to study the components of what appears to have been a single festive meal. Extant remains include numerous mammal bones, mollusc shells, and ceramic tableware; they suggest a rustic Mediterranean cuisine, compatible with the presence of Greek settlers in pre-Hasmonean Galilee.
This paper provides preliminary results of our ongoing analysis of faunal remains from the Idumean site of Maresha, a site located in the Shephelah region of Israel and dated to the 4-2 centuries BC. The Zooarchaeological research in this key site is an efficient tool for portraying the social and cultural character of the site during the Late Persian and Hellenistic period. We sampled animal bones from several subterranean complexes in order to characterize the subsistence practices of the site's inhabitants. The explored dietary habits provide new lines of evidence regarding the cultural identity of its population. We highlight the main characteristics of the faunal assemblage and draw broad conclusions regarding differences and similarities in its dietary habits in the context of contemporaneous sites from the region. The high abundance of fowls and pigs show clear differences between Maresha and nearby chronologically matched sites.
Another interesting characteristic of the Maresha faunal assemblage is the abundance of sheep and goat astragali (knuckle bones) that are widely, yet differentially, dispersed across the site (NISP=512). We found direct connection between the amount of astragali in certain areas and their function. Underground rooms that show ritual activity are rich with inscribed astragali, while other contexts are not. For instance, in area 89, where an altar was excavated, we found the highest amount of astragali, many of them bear the names of gods. This discovery further illuminates the spiritual world and socio-cultural aspects of the Idumean people of Maresha.
This article examines the faunal remains retrieved from two distinct refuse deposits dated to the Late Byzantine period (6th to early 7th centuries AD) at Apollonia. The refuse deposits were located on the southern (area M) and northern (area O) extremities of the Late Byzantine period occupation at the site, and are recognized as belonging to two different groups. Despite the sample size, a trend can be detected, shedding new light on social diversity at the site. Although both assemblages are dominated by domestic species, there are differences: mainly the relative frequency of domestic and wild game species, in addition to the frequency of skeletal elements and the mortality profiles of the main domesticates. These differences indicate that the inhabitants of the two areas may have employed different modes of economy. This may hint at their usage by different religious groups, Christians and Samaritans, which are known to have inhabited the site.
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