There and back again: A zooarchaeological perspective on Early and Middle Bronze Age urbanism in the southern Levant

Jane S. Gaastra,Tina L. Greenfield,Peter F. Biehl,Haskel J. Greenfield

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0227255

Jane S. Gaastra, Tina L. Greenfield + Show 2 more

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https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0227255

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Abstract

Multiple arguments for or against the presence of ‘urban’ settlements in the Early Bronze Age of the southern Levant have identified the need to compare these settlements against their rural hinterlands through multiple lines of evidence. This meta-analysis of zooarchaeological data from the region compares and identifies patterns of animal production, provisioning and consumption between the supposed “urban” and rural sites of the southern Levant from the Early Bronze (EB) against the (more widely recognised urban) Middle Bronze (MB) Ages. It also identifies distinct and regionally specific patterns in animal production and consumption that can be detected between urban and rural sites of the southern Levant. The taxonomic and age profiles from EB Ia and Ib sites do not demonstrate any urban versus rural differentiation patterning, even though fortifications appear in the EB Ib. Beginning in the EB II and clearly visible in the EB III, there is differentiation between rural and urban sites in the taxonomic and age proportions. Differentiation is repeated in the MB II. The clear differentiation between “urban” and rural zooarchaeological assemblages from the EB II-III and MB suggest that rural sites are provisioning the larger fortified settlements. This pattern indicates that these sites are indeed urban in nature, and these societies are organized at the state-level. From the EB II onwards, there is a clear bias in the large centres towards the consumption of cattle and of subadult sheep and goats with a corresponding bias in smaller rural sites towards the consumption of adult sheep and goats and a reduced presence of cattle. After the emergence of this differential pattern, it disappears with the decline in social complexity at the end of the Early Bronze Age, only to come ‘back again’ with the re-emergence of urban settlement systems in the Middle Bronze Age.

Highlights

The origins and nature of complex societies in the southern Levant have seen extensive debate over the last several decades
Tel Erani exhibits a less restricted focus on ovicaprines than the average for this period (65.6% compared with 71.2% at rural sites) due to its slightly increased representation of cattle (21.7% compared with 19.3%) as well as pigs (9.8% vs. 7.0%) and equids (2.9% vs. 2.4%), Fig 3
The strong biases seen at urban sites towards the consumption of juvenile and subadult animals would have made herds reproductively non-viable without the supplemental or complete provisioning of sites from elsewhere ([105]; [40]). The confirmation of this pattern as indicating restricted urban-consumer age profiles during the Early Bronze (EB) II, EB III and Middle Bronze (MB) II is the presence of corresponding contemporaneous rural-producer ovicaprine age profiles with their biases towards adult animals and away from the subadult animals consumed by urban residents ([90]; [105]; [40])

Summary

Introduction

The origins and nature of complex societies in the southern Levant have seen extensive debate over the last several decades. The final period of the Early Bronze Age, the EB IV (Phase 6: c.2500-2000 cal BCE), sees the loss of urban settlement patterns across the southern Levant with the possible exception of Khirbet Iskander or Khirbet al-Batrāwī which demonstrate 3.5% of fauna from wild animals (1.3% from rural sites) but with cattle only representing 8.1% of domesticates (8.2% from rural sites) and pigs only 0.9% compared with 0.5% at rural sites dating to this phase The similarity of these comparisons does not suggest a difference in diet or access to animal resources between sites of this period, the limited sample size from the EB IV(where identifiable archaeological sites are less well represented overall) makes this lack of differentiation difficult to prove. The confirmation of this pattern as indicating restricted urban-consumer age profiles during the EB II, EB III and MB II is the presence of corresponding contemporaneous rural-producer ovicaprine age profiles with their biases towards adult animals and away from the subadult animals consumed by urban residents ([90]; [105]; [40])

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