Subsistence practices in an arid environment: a geoarchaeological investigation in an Iron Age site, the Negev Highlands, Israel
Subsistence practices in an arid environment: a geoarchaeological investigation in an Iron Age site, the Negev Highlands, Israel
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干旱环境中的生存实践：以色列内盖夫高地铁器时代遗址的地质考古调查
DOI：
10.1016/j.jas.2007.06.019
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发表时间：
2008
影响因子：
2.8
通讯作者：
I. Finkelstein
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
R. Shahack‐Gross;I. Finkelstein
内盖夫高地(以色列南部)是一个以定居点波动为特征的干旱地区。一个聚落高峰出现在铁器时代早期(公元前10世纪末和公元前9世纪初)。在这一时期的许多遗址中，最显眼的结构是一个椭圆形的院落，由一个由房间包围的内部庭院组成。关于这些椭圆形化合物功能的两个假设是，它们作为以色列人的堡垒，守卫着所罗门王国的南部边界和路线，或者它们代表着当地的农牧团体。为了收集更多关于在这些椭圆形院落中进行的谋生做法的信息，我们在Atar Haroa遗址进行了一次小规模挖掘。我们侧重于沉积物采样，并使用了几种地质考古和同位素技术，以确定与畜牧业和农作物农业有关的宏观和微观遗迹。从考古沉积物中鉴定出的遗骸与从废弃的贝都因人营地收集的现代参考材料进行了比较。发掘包括椭圆形院落庭院中的两个半房间和几个测试坑，展示了一个由灰色沉积物组成的铁器时代占领层，以及相对少量的陶器、骨骼和大型植物烧焦的遗骸。对这些房间的灰色职业沉淀物进行了微形态、矿物学、粪球和同位素分析，结果表明它们来自木灰和粪便，两者都被用作燃料。对院子里灰色沉积物的类似分析表明，它们只来自降解的牲畜粪便。植硅体分析表明，灰色人为沉积物中的植硅体浓度与对照(淡黄色)沉积物以及冬季自由放牧的沙漠牲畜和地衣放牧的黑矮贝都因山羊的粪便中的植硅体浓度相似。考古粪便遗迹中完全没有表明谷类作物的植硅体，这表明谷类作物不是由遗址居民加工的。根据人种学和考古学的相似之处，以及出土房间中存在磨石和没有镰刀刀片，我们推断阿塔尔·哈罗阿椭圆形院落的居民以放牧为生，并购买或交换谷物。我们的结果支持了这样的假设，即阿塔尔·哈罗阿椭圆形院落的居民是适应沙漠的牧民，而不是驻军士兵。
The Negev Highlands (southern Israel) is an arid zone characterized by settlement oscillations. One settlement peak occurred in the early Iron Age IIA (late 10th and early 9th centuries BC). The most conspicuous structure in many sites of this period is an oval compound comprised of an internal courtyard surrounded by rooms. Two hypotheses for the function of these oval compounds are that they served as Israelite fortresses which guarded the southern border and routes of the Solomonic kingdom, or that they represent local agro-pastoral groups. In order to gather more information regarding the subsistence practices conducted in these oval compounds, we carried out a small-scale excavation at the site of Atar Haroa. We focused on sediment sampling and used several geoarchaeological, as well as isotopic, techniques in order to identify macroscopic and microscopic remains related to animal husbandry and crop agriculture. The remains identified from the archaeological sediments were compared with modern reference materials collected from abandoned Bedouin camps. The excavation included two half rooms and several test pits in the courtyard of the oval compound, featuring one Iron Age occupation level composed of gray sediments and relatively small amounts of pottery, bones and macro-botanical charred remains. Micromorphological, mineralogical, dung spherulite and isotopic analyses carried out on the gray occupational sediments from the rooms show that they originate from wood ash and dung, both used as fuel. Similar analyses of the gray sediments in the courtyard show that they originate only from degraded livestock dung. Phytolith analyses show that the gray anthropogenic sediments have similar concentrations of phytoliths as in control (yellowish) sediments and in the dung of winter free-grazing desert livestock and lichen-grazing black dwarf Bedouin goats. Phytoliths indicative of cereal crops are completely absent in the archaeological dung remains, indicating that cereal crops were not processed by the site inhabitants. Based on ethnographic and archaeological parallels, and on the presence of grinding stones and absence of sickle blades in the excavated rooms, we infer that the inhabitants at the oval compound at Atar Haroa subsisted on livestock herding and bought or exchanged cereal grains. Our results support the hypothesis that the inhabitants at the oval compound at Atar Haroa were desert-adapted pastoralists, rather than garrisoned soldiers.