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The present study investigates the occurrence of wild grasses at Epipalaeolithic and aceramic Neolithic sites in the Near East in order to assess their role in subsistence economies alongside the emergence of cereal cultivation. We use Chogha Golan in the foothills of the central Zagros Mountains (ca. 11.7–9.6 ka cal. BP) as a case study, where the archaeobotanical data suggest the frequent exploitation of a complex of wild grasses for almost 2,000 years. Domesticated emmer replaced these wild grasses as the major food resources towards the end of occupation at the site (ca. 9.8 ka cal. BP). We discuss possible implications of this development and conclude that the traditional concept of pre-domestication cultivation seems unsuited for explaining the patterns from Chogha Golan. These data are in good accordance with the overall picture in the Zagros Mountains, where wild grasses were routinely gathered throughout the early Holocene. In contrast, wild grasses were gradually replaced by wild cereals in the Levantine corridor since the end of the Pleistocene. However, several sites located in this region provide evidence for a continuous exploitation of wild grasses alongside emerging cereal cultivation and most of these taxa were part of the earliest segetal floras that evolved with the appearance of domestic cereals throughout the 11th millennium cal. BP. Some sites contemporary to the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B still provide evidence for the usage of wild grasses, which possibly reflects the utilization of edible arable weeds and continuous gathering of wild grasses by more mobile groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The collapse and resilience of political systems in the ancient Near East and their relationship with agricultural development have been of wide interest in archaeology and anthropology. Despite attempts to link the archaeological evidence to local paleoclimate data, the precise role of environmental conditions in ancient agricultural production remains poorly understood. Recently, stable isotope analysis has been used for reconstructing site-specific ancient growing conditions for crop species in semiarid and arid landscapes. To open the discussion of the role of regional diversity in past agricultural production as a factor in societal development, we present 1.037 new stable carbon isotope measurements from 33 archaeological sites and modern fields in the geographic area of the Fertile Crescent, spanning the Aceramic Neolithic [10,000 calibrated years (cal) B.C.] to the later Iron Age (500 cal B.C.), alongside modern data from 13 locations. Our data show that drought stress was an issue in many agricultural settlements in the ancient Near East, particularly in correlation with the major Holocene climatic fluctuations, but its regional impact was diverse and influenced by geographic factors. Although cereals growing in the coastal areas of the northern Levant were relatively unaffected by Holocene climatic fluctuations, farmers of regions further inland had to apply irrigation to cope with increased water stress. However, inland agricultural strategies showed a high degree of variability. Our findings suggest that regional differences in climatic effects led to diversified strategies in ancient subsistence and economy even within spatially limited cultural units. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Subsistence patterns during the Early Bronze Age I through the Iron Age II (3600-586 BCE) are the topic of many archaeobotanical and zooarchaeological studies. The results of these two disciplines are usually published separately, depriving us of an all-encompassing view of subsistence and agriculture during this time period since people did not solely make use of animal or plant products. In this paper, our goal is to integrate faunal and botanical lines of evidence and study developments in subsistence using multivariate statistics. By analysing individual and integrated datasets of botanical and faunal remains, we aim to better understand the role of diverse variables, such as chronology, mean annual precipitation, and elevation within the composition of our datasets. We see chronological differences, a distinction between sites at higher (400–600 mm) and lower (200–400 mm) precipitation ranges and differences between sites at different elevations (0–100 m and 500–600 m). We also highlight methodological issues intrinsic to differences in genesis and quantification of archaeobotanical and zooarchaeological datasets. We conclude that to obtain a complete understanding of subsistence during the Bronze and Iron Age in the Southern Levant, archaeobotanists and zooarchaeologists need to work on integrating their data on a site-specific level. This will allow us to obtain a holistic understanding of subsistence and agricultural practices on both a site and regional level and allow us to develop a stronger framework for understanding social and political developments that occurred during these time periods. • Integration of archaeobotanical and zooarchaeological data is essential. • Multivariate statistics help understand past subsistence practices. • Bronze and Iron Age diet are determined by historical processes. • Early and Middle Bronze Age diet differs from Late Bronze Age and Iron Age diet. • Precipitation and elevation play a role in past subsistence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]