Abstract
The climate record of the Mid-Holocene southern Levant indicates a period of rapid climate change and erratic rainfall. An unpredictable rainfall regime would have posed a considerable risk to societies dependent upon crops and livestock that require a plentiful and consistent supply of water. In this paper, we first examine an assemblage of pig remains from Hartuv, a small settlement occupied during the Early Bronze Age, and then interpret these data alongside palaeohydrological evidence. We reconcile seemingly contradictory data—high relative taxonomic abundance of pigs and climatic conditions characterized by a general aridification trend and rainfall instability—by considering zooarchaeological assemblages from nearby sites in the context of their hydrological settings. On the basis of geoarchaeological evidence from Hartuv, we conclude that the effects of variable rainfall were mitigated by a locally marshy environment and an anthropogenic landscape feature, which may have been used to store water.
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