From the Beginnings: Archaeology, Paleoenvironments and the Origins of Desert Exploitation
Convener: Michal Birkenfeld, BGU
Archaeology can serve as a valuable tool for the exploration of desert environments and their exploitation by human groups. Biological, chemical and sedimentological proxies, derived from archaeological contexts, allow complex, detailed palaeoenvironmental research, offering insights into past climates, landscapes, and most-importantly, human-environment interactions. Indeed, it is the ability of archaeology to correlate human action and environmental conditions that makes archaeology one of the leading disciplines in the emerging field of Environmental Humanities. In this session we will present a variety of test-cases, representing various periods and socio-economic systems, from prehistoric hunter-gatherers, through proto-historic pastoralists to the historical and classical periods’ agricultural and trade-related empires. All will exemplify how archaeology can inform and ameliorate models of human/environment interaction and the commodification between humans and the arid environment.
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- From the Beginnings: Archaeology, Paleoenvironments and the Origins of Desert Exploitation
1) Prof. Daryl Codron
University of Free State, South Africa
Self-Organised Similarity Stabilizes Herbivore Community Structure Despite Long-Term Aridification and Biodiversity Loss
- From the Beginnings: Archaeology, Paleoenvironments and the Origins of Desert Exploitation
2) Prof. Nimrod Marom
Oranim College of Education, Israel
Archaeological Ostrich (Struthio spp.) Eggshell as a Paleoenvironmental Indicator in the Prehistoric Levant
- From the Beginnings: Archaeology, Paleoenvironments and the Origins of Desert Exploitation
3) Dr. Mae Goder-Goldberger
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel
Ecologically Contextualizing Paleolithic Hunter-Gatherer Life Ways at the Desert Margins, Northern Negev, Israel
