Iron Age Agriculture − A Critical Rejoinder to “Settlement Oscillations in the Negev Highlands Revisited: the Impact of Microarchaeological Methods”

What is it about?

Ancient agriculture in the central Negev desert was based on the capture of runoff water and floodwater generated by local rainfall on hill slopes. This water was captured by stone terrace walls built in valleys (wadis) containing sufficient soil to store the water, so that agricultural crops could be grown in such terraced wadis. Some have claimed that terrace agriculture in the Negev began with the Roman–Byzantine period and that there was no agriculture in the region during the Iron Age. However, we present comprehensive evidence, including many radiocarbon dates, showing that such terrace agriculture in the Negev is much older and occurred also in the Late Bronze Age and Iron Age.

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Why is it important?

Our data give convincing evidence that agriculture was conducted in the central Negev desert in the Late Bronze and Early Iron Age. Therefore, people lived in this region, which was considered to have been deserted during the entire 2nd millennium BCE. It shows that certain archaeological periods, including the Middle Bronze and Late Bronze Age, which were considered to be absent in view of previous archaeological surveys and excavations, can be identified with novel landscape archaeology approaches and radiocarbon dating.

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