Animal-based subsistence: interim remarks

Abstract

This chapter provides interim comments on the zooarchaeological analysis undertaken at Khirbat ash-Sheikh 'Isa (KSI), focusing on two Islamic phases of the site's occupation, the 9th—10th centuries and 12th—14th centuries AD. KSI was known to be an agricultural centre during the Roman and Early Byzantine periods, while during Abbasid-Fatimid times, it has been described as a ‘busy market town renowned for its indigo and date production’, and by the Ayyubid-Mamluk period, it had become a flourishing commercial centre, with an economy primarily based on sugar production. The sites include a Crusader military base and an outpost of the Frankish defensive network, both of which are likely to have been provisioned by local agricultural producers; other sites represent rural agricultural communities engaged predominantly in subsistence production. Standard zooarchaeological recording methods targeted questions of animal production and usage plus carcass treatment and site formation processes.