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Developing an effective method for recording the data produced, sharing it, and preserving it are essential tasks of the archaeological profession. Although international and national rules are in place, archiving archaeological data is often left to the discretion of the archaeologist in charge of the excavation. It is essential that data management be developed in accordance with the FAIR principles to make data findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable (hence the acronym FAIR). Granting agencies, such as the European Research Council and several National Research Funds, require a data management plan as soon as applications for project contributions are submitted. The plan is intended to promote the use of datasets by specifying the standards that will be used to organize the data and metadata and the digital repositories where they will be kept. The plan is also used to define permissions for access to the dataset. From this perspective, archaeologists are expected to make excavation data accessible and interoperable in accordance with the rules specific to their research domain. The purpose of this article is to review the application of FAIR principles in data management plans developed by archaeological projects. First, we will describe the steps necessary to publish archaeological information on the Semantic Web, then we will examine the laws and standards for archiving archaeological data, and then we will review the most commonly used archival systems in the field. In the final section of the article, we will discuss the topic of the data management plan and propose best practices to follow in developing an archaeological data management plan. The set of practices presented will be useful to researchers in managing the life cycle of data from archaeological research.

The societal "collapse" of the urban-based system, which is part of the rise-flourish-and fall cycle of the protoshistoric societies of the Near East, is investigated via an integrated approach based on the identification of short-term climate changes by stable isotopes analyses on archeobotanical remains and variations in settlement pattern.

We explore the informative potential of discarted archaeobotanical remains well beyond the sphere of food strategies, and to outline the dispersal behaviour pattern of a well-established Syrian city-state of Ebla during the Middle Bronze Age

The transformation of society from mobile hunter-gatherers to settled farmers was completed in Neolithic times and became a point of ‘no return’ in human history. The nature and the origin of that transformation have always been of special interest in terms of guiding research on the Levantine Epipalaeolithic (c. 23–11.5 ka cal BP). The Late Epipalaeolithic Natufian culture (14.5–11.5 ka BP), characterised by stone-built dwellings, elaborate burial practices, objects d’art and personal decoration, is considered a threshold to Neolithic farming communities (Bar-Yosef 1998). While agriculture practised by Natufian hunters was noted in Garrod’s (1932) very first publication of Natufian culture more than 80 years ago, the origin of that culture remains enigmatic. At the same time, large, open-air Early Epipalaeolithic sites discovered during the last decades provide some evidence of social complexity, arguably suggesting cultural continuity and the perception of the transition to agriculture in the Levant as a long, gradual and protracted process

The Upper Palaeolithic of the Levant (45 000–22 000 BP) represents the full establishment of modern human behavior in this region following the existence of both modern humans and Neanderthals during the Middle Palaeolithic. The Levantine Upper Palaeolithic shares some similarities to its European counterpart but otherwise is quite different.

The discovery of a deep votive well full of pottery, idols of clay, animal bones and charred plant remains, along the wall of the Temple of Rock at Ebla, opened new perspectives in the study of worship activities held in that particular areas. Plant remains were considered as privileged interpretative tools, and careful attention was taken during the collection of samples. Therefore, the investigation started characterizing the different depositional episodes: the ritual fuel discharging was distinguished from the deposition of charred materials in pots. As result, the identification of plant remains collected led to shed light on the type and the geographical origin of the archaeobotanical assemblage as well the meaning assumed by vegetal components in rituals.

Electronic publication: http://www.wac6.org/livesite/precirculated/2071_precirculated.pdf

New discoveries of legumes in the lower Galilee at the prehistoric site of Ahihud in Israel shed light on early farming systems in the southern Levant. Radiocarbon dating of twelve legumes from pits and floors indicate that the farming of legumes was practiced in southern Levant as early as 10.240-10.200 (1σ) ago. The legumes were collected from pits and other domestic contexts dated to the Early Pre-Pottery Neolithic B. The legumes identified include Vicia faba L. (faba bean), V. ervilia (bitter vetch), V. narbonensis (narbon vetch), Lens sp. (lentil), Pisum sp. (pea), Lathyrus inconspicuus (inconspicuous pea) and L. hirosolymitanus (jerusalem vetchling). Comparison with coeval sites in the region show how the presence of peas, narbon vetches, inconspicuous peas, jerusalem vetchlings and bitter vetches together with faba bean and lentils is unique to the Pre-Pottery Neolithic, and might indicate specific patterns in farming or storing at the onset of agriculture.

The identification of ancient climate fluctuations represents an hard challenge for studies intended to outline the human–environment interaction in fragile ecosystems. The aim of this work is to test the potentialities of carbon stable isotopic content of AMS-dated archaeological plant remains as tool to infer variations in rainfall/temperature regimes. The results obtained in the analysis of the carbon stable isotopic content of 10 plant remains selected among the archaeobotanical remains collected at the archaeological site in Faragola (Apulia, Italy) and radiocarbon-dated by AMS are presented. The variation of δ 13 C values was considered on a chronological scale covering a time range comprised between the II century BC and the VII century AD. The obtained patterns were also compared with local and global-scale palaeoclimatic records.

Three engraved limestone plaquettes from the recently excavated Epipaleolithic open-air site Ein Qashish South in the Jezreel Valley, Israel comprise unique evidence for symbolic behavior of Late Pleistocene foragers in the Levant. The engravings, uncovered in Kebaran and Geometric Kebaran deposits (ca. 23ka and ca. 16.5ka BP), include the image of a bird-the first figurative representation known so far from a pre-Natufian Epipaleolithic-along with geometric motifs such as chevrons, crosshatchings and ladders. Some of the engravings closely resemble roughly contemporary European finds interpreted as "systems of notations" or "artificial memory systems"-records related to timing of seasonal resources and associated aggregation events of nomadic groups. Moreover, similarly looking signs and patterns are well known from the context of the local Natufian-a final Epipaleolithic culture of sedentary or semi-sedentary foragers who started practicing agriculture. The investigation of the engravings found in Ein Qashish South involves conceptualizations developed in studies of European and local parallels, a selection of ethnographic examples and preliminary microscopic observations of the plaquettes. This shows that the figurative and non-figurative images comprise a coherent assemblage of symbols that might have been applied in order to store, share and transmit information related to social and subsistence realms of mobile bands. It further suggests that the site functioned as a locality of groups' aggregation and indicates social complexity of pre-Natufian foragers in the Levant. While alterations in social and subsistence strategies can explain the varying frequency of image use characterizing different areas of the Late Pleistocene world-the apparent similarity in graphics and the mode of their application support the possibility that symbol-mediated behavior has a common and much earlier origin.

The major social and economic changes associated with the rise of a sedentary lifestyle and the gradual transition to food production in the southern Levant are often considered to have been triggered by climate changes at the end of the Pleistocene (∼20,000–11,000 years BP). This explanation, however, is biased by the scarcity of high-resolution climate records directly associated with human activity and the lack of refined palaeoecological studies from multi-stratified sites in the area. Here, we present the results of an anthracological analysis, carried out on charcoals collected along a continuous column of archaeological sediments in the Natufian site of el-Wad Terrace (Mount Carmel, Israel). We also present the carbon isotopes analysis of 14C-dated archaeological remains of Amygdalus sp. The analyses of charcoal shows the predominance of an oak forest including Quercus calliprinos and ithaburensis around the site during the Early Natufian building phase (∼14,600–13,700 cal BP), and the values of Δ13C point to a high rainfall rate. This period is followed by a marked decrease in the local rainfall between ∼13,700 and 12,000 cal BP). The reduction, culturally associated with the latest Early Natufian and the Late Natufian, is independently recorded by the speleothems of the region: Soreq Cave and Jerusalem Cave. This period incorporates an increase in drought tolerant species such as Amygdalus sp. Thermo-Mediterranean species, such as Olea europaea and Ceratonia siliqua, as well as Pistacia palaestina, which dominate the modern landscape, become established in the Holocene. We conclude that the Natufian settlement at el-Wad Terrace flourished in the context of oak forests, and subsequently occupation intensity decreased in concurrence to the drying trend. This shift does not correspond to the cultural typology (i.e. Early Natufian vs. Late Natufian). Human response to climate change at the terminal Pleistocene Levant was multifaceted and localized. Its understanding requires the analysis of records that are well-tied to human ecology and behavior.

The understanding of crop domestication is dependent on tracking the original geographical distribution of wild relatives. The faba bean (Vicia faba L.) is economically important in many countries around the world; nevertheless, its origin has been debated because its ancestor could not be securely identified. Recent investigations in the site of el-Wad (Mount Carmel, Israel), provide the first and, so far, only remains of the lost ancestor of faba bean. X-ray CT scan analysis of the faba beans provides the first set of measurements of the biometry of this species before its domestication. The presence of wild specimens in Mount Carmel, 14,000 years ago, supports that the wild variety grew nearby in the Lower Galilee where the first domestication was documented for Neolithic farmers 10,200 years ago.

Even though the faba bean (Vicia faba L.) is among the most ubiquitously cultivated crops, very little is known about its origins. Here, we report discoveries of charred faba beans from three adjacent Neolithic sites in the lower Galilee region, in the southern Levant, that offer new insights into the early history of this species. Biometric measurements, radiocarbon dating and stable carbon isotope analyses of the archaeological remains, supported by experiments on modern material, date the earliest farming of this crop to ~10,200 cal BP. The large quantity of faba beans found in these adjacent sites indicates intensive production of faba beans in the region that can only have been achieved by planting non-dormant seeds. Selection of mutant-non-dormant stock suggests that the domestication of the crop occurred as early as the 11th millennium cal BP. Plant domestication| Vicia faba L.| Pre-Pottery Neolithic B| radiocarbon dating| Δ13C analysis.

A key event in human evolution is the expansion of modern humans of African origin across Eurasia between 60 and 40 thousand years (kyr) before present (bp), replacing all other forms of hominins. Owing to the scarcity of human fossils from this period, these ancestors of all present-day non-African modern populations remain largely enigmatic. Here we describe a partial calvaria, recently discovered at Manot Cave (Western Galilee, Israel) and dated to 54.7 ± 5.5 kyr bp (arithmetic mean ± 2 standard deviations) by uranium-thorium dating, that sheds light on this crucial event. The overall shape and discrete morphological features of the Manot 1 calvaria demonstrate that this partial skull is unequivocally modern. It is similar in shape to recent African skulls as well as to European skulls from the Upper Palaeolithic period, but different from most other early anatomically modern humans in the Levant. This suggests that the Manot people could be closely related to the first modern humans who later successfully colonized Europe. Thus, the anatomical features used to support the 'assimilation model' in Europe might not have been inherited from European Neanderthals, but rather from earlier Levantine populations. Moreover, at present, Manot 1 is the only modern human specimen to provide evidence that during the Middle to Upper Palaeolithic interface, both modern humans and Neanderthals contemporaneously inhabited the southern Levant, close in time to the likely interbreeding event with Neanderthals.

Charred plant materials found in archaeological contexts are usually considered the most reliable remains for radiocarbon dating. Usually, seeds and fruits are preferred to wood fragments because their short lifecycle reduces the range of uncertainty of the14C measurement. A selection of short-lived samples, mainly from barley and wheat, from the Late Roman site of Faragola (SE Italy) were14C dated; however, the14C dates obtained were not always consistent with the chronology provided by other archaeological evidence. A careful analysis of all the macrobotanical remains found in each of the dated contexts provides insight into the origin of the plant material, helping to distinguish betweenin situand non-in situmaterial. The14C dates are reconsidered in the context of findings and the kind of material selected for dating. Using the archaeological context, a Bayesian model was employed to reduce the range of the calibrated date and thereby refine the chronology of the site on an absolute basis.

We use AMS (Accelerator Mass Spectrometry) techniques for the simultaneous analysis of carbon stable isotopic values and 14C dating on charred plant remains found in the archaeological site in Ebla (Syria) and propose the diachronic variation in δ13C plant values as a possible palaeoclimatic tool. Both anthracological and carpological remains, usually employed in palaeoenvironmental, palaeoagricultural, palaeonutritional and palaeoeconomical reconstructions, are used to study stable carbon isotopic variations in a chronological framework defined through radiocarbon AMS measurements. The results obtained from the samples of the Ebla archaeological site show a chronological correspondence with other climatic reconstructions based on various proxy data available for the Near East and shed new light on the aridity crisis of the III millennium B.C.