Samuel White
Research Mentor(s): Kara Larson
Mentor Department: Anthropology; Museum of Anthropological Archaeology
Authors: Samuel White, Kara Larson
Session: Session 1 (9:00am – 9:50am)
Presentation Type: Poster 115
Abstract
During the Early Bronze Age (3100-2500 B.C.E.), the Southern Levant–a region in Southwest Asia consisting of modern-day Palestine, Israel, and Jordan–experienced a rapid period of urbanization as urban centers formed. In turn, animal herd management practices adapted to these early cities’ greater food-consumption needs. The particular food-provisioning strategies– rearing and consuming their own animals or sourcing animals from external rural pastoralists–of these cities is of ongoing discussion. Using animal remains collected at the site of Tell el-Hesi in the Northern Negev Desert, these provisioning strategies of early cities in the Southern Levant can be extrapolated based on how their animal herds were managed. The collagen extracted via bone demineralization from sheep, goat, and cattle mandibles collected from Fields VI and IV contains carbon (d13C) and nitrogen (d15N). These isotopes are correlated to the animals’ dietary patterns, which are reliant upon the herders’ animal-management practices–whether the animals were taken to graze on pastures or were foddered–fed dried hay and grass. Recent isotopic evidence from Tell el-Hesi demonstrates a large range of carbon and nitrogen values among the sampled herd animal mandibles. These results reflect a variety of herd management practices and are critical to understanding the pathways of early urban foodways in the Southern Levant.
