The potential of historical cisterns as paleoenvironmental and geoarchaeological archive: The Negev Highlands, Israel

过去，以色列的内盖夫高地以强烈的定居点波动为特点。这些波动是否由人口、(社会)经济、政治或气候变化引起，这一点仍在争论中。由于内盖夫高地缺乏适当的环境档案，以及从周围地区推断古环境重建存在问题，过去的气候变化不能被评估为定居点活动变化的一个因素。需要建立新的沉积物档案，以便能够可靠地重建内盖夫高地的古环境。该地区的干旱，加上部分较高的沉降活动，导致建造了大量不同类型的蓄水池来收集和储存降水。在蓄水池使用期间，来自邻近斜坡的侵蚀沉淀物会在蓄水池内积聚，并被移走以维修设施。废弃后，这些设施成为理想的泥沙捕集器，记录了不受干扰的泥沙记录。蓄水池内的沉积物堆积可能对古环境重建具有很高的相关性。为建造设施和维护目的而移走的沉积物包含了地质考古研究的重要信息。然而，蓄水池沉积物的年代测定对于利用这些沉积物作为地质考古和古环境档案是至关重要的。为了建立可靠的年代学框架，光激发发光(OSL)测年和微形态分析相结合似乎是可选择的方法，因为它们允许限制所调查设施的建造、使用和废弃的时间框架。根据这些年代地层学结果，可以讨论这些设施对定居点、农业活动和放牧的重要性。此外，蓄水池沉积物再充填的年代地层学为通过沉积学、地球化学和孢粉分析评价作为沉积档案的水库提供了必不可少的信息。在这方面，该提案旨在评估蓄水池及其沉积物作为古环境和地质考古研究的新型沉积物档案的潜力。

In the past, the Negev Highlands in Israel were characterized by strong settlement oscillations. It is still under debate, if these oscillations were caused by demographic, (socio-)economic, political or climatic variations. As a result of the lack of suitable environmental archives in the Negev Highlands and as consequence of the problematic extrapolation of palaeoenvironmental reconstructions from the surrounding areas, climate variations in the past cannot be evaluated as a factor for changes in settlement activity. New sediment archives need to be established to enable a reliable palaeoenvironmental reconstruction for the Negev Highlands. The aridity of the region in combination with the partially high settlement activity caused the construction of large numbers of cisterns of different types to collect and store precipitation. During cistern usage, the eroded sediments from adjoining slopes accumulated within the cistern and were removed to maintain the installations. After their abandonment, the installations served as ideal sediment traps with undisturbed sediment records. The sediment accumulation within the cisterns bear the potential to be of high relevance for palaeoenvironmental reconstruction. The sediments removed to construct the installations and for maintenance purposes contain important information for geoarchaeological research. However, age determination of the cistern’s sediments is of crucial importance for using these sediments as geoarchaeological and paleoenvironmental archives. For establishing a reliable chronological framework, a combination of optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dating and micromorphological analyses appears to be the method of choice, since they allow to constrain a time frame for the construction, use and abandonment of the investigated installations. Based on these chronostratigraphic results, the importance of the installations for settlements, agricultural activity and herding can be discussed. In addition, the chronostratigraphy of the cistern’s sediment refill provides information indispensable for the evaluation of water reservoirs as sedimentary archives by means of sedimentological, geochemical and palynological analyses. In this respect, the proposal aims at evaluating the potential of cisterns and their sediments as novel types of sediment archives for palaeoenvironmental and geoarchaeological research.