Holocene landscape change in the southern Levant in the context of dust deposition and land use

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Little is known about the landscape development of the southern Levant during the Holocene, and how landscape changes, human activity, and climate fluctuations interacted. The well-studied loess deposits of the Negev in southern Israel documented mainly environmental changes during the Pleistocene, and loess in southern Jordan has been postulated, but hardly been investigated. Despite the experimental work on runoff terraces in the Negev, the purposes and design concepts of ancient agricultural terrace systems in the southern Levant are still largely unknown. The project approaches these questions with a comparative study connecting different geoarchaeological archives along a regional transect. Systematic comparisons of sediments preserved in different archaeological structures (hilltop ruins, cisterns, and terraces) and natural sediments along catenas on catchment-scale areconducted near the sites of Horvat Haluqim and Jabal Haroun, focusing on the Iron Age till Byzantine period that are well-represented by geoarchaeological structures. In addition, sediment characteristics are compared in different landscape contexts and on divergent positions regarding regional dust trajectories, with modern dust from specific dust storms, and with late Pleistocene loess. In order to better understand past land use and terraces systems, comprehensive surveys of selected terrace systems are conducted by studying off-site material culture distribution in the context of terrace design, the geomorphology, sediment properties, and soil development. The comparison of these archives will allow for partial reconstructions of sedimentation processes on catchment scale during the selected time-frames, and will lead to better assessments whether climate reconstructions based on Pleistocene sediments can be utilized for modeling Holocene changes. The comprehensive survey of selected terrace systems using the approach of landscape archaeology will make it possible to better understand the construction periods, design concepts, and purposes of the studied terrace systems.