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Abstract: Despite its economic and symbolic importance in the arid regions of the Middle East little is still known about the early cultivation of the date palm (Phoenix dactylifera L.). Besides its numerous uses, this fruit tree constitutes the main species and structural element of the date palm gardens that characterize the hot deserts of the Old World. These agrosystems, perfectly adapted to the specific constraints of the environment, concentrate agricultural production in an artificial and intensively cultivated space depending on irrigation. While the first evidence of the cultivation of date palms in southern Mesopotamia dates to the 5th millennium B.C., oasis agriculture seems to have developed mainly during the early Bronze Age (from around 3000 B.C.) when this type of agrosystem can be reconstructed in different parts of the Middle East: Mesopotamia, southeastern Iran and eastern Arabia. The present paper draws together evidence from different kinds of sources (archaeobotany, texts, iconography) bearing on the early history of oasis agriculture. Questions of particular interest are the organization of past date palm gardens and their irrigation. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: This paper uses a multi-faceted approach to understand the use and distribution of different irrigation technologies in the Roman Near East (63 BC - AD 636), looking at the ways in which social and environmental factors affected the implementation of those irrigation technologies. It is argued that no single factor can fully explain how irrigation technologies were used across time and space in this region. Instead, choices in irrigation technology seem to have been governed by a complex nexus of both social and environmental factors. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Desert kites are stone-built, funnel-shaped installations comprising two long and low stone-built walls (‘arms’) converging on an enclosure or pit at the apex. They are found in the deserts of the Near East, and are generally accepted as representing game traps to catch herds of wild ungulates. Their chronology is debated but some desert kites appear to have functioned as early as the 7th millennium BC. The largest number of these structures is recorded in the deserts of eastern Jordan where they often form chains of up to 60km long. In contrast, in the Negev (Israel) and Sinai (Egypt) deserts, the desert kites are few in number and occur as small, individual installations. This paper presents the results of archaeological surveys and excavations of 16 desert kites from the Negev desert and northeast Sinai. We present radiocarbon dates, infrared stimulated luminescence ages and chronology of material culture to show that desert kites in this region were established in the late 4th–early 3rd millennia BC and ceased to function by the mid-2nd millennium BC. The size, shape and location of the desert kites fits the physical conditions of the terrain and also the ethology and ecology of the prey species hunted. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]