Crop Production in the Levant and International Trade Exchange: investigating coprolites and crop plant remains from the 1st millennium CE Negev Highlands and Aravah Valley

CroProLITE aims to evaluate the Islamic Green Revolution (IGR) thesis–involving crop introduction from eastern and central Asia to the Mediterranean by Early Islamic empires–through a microregional comparative study of 1st millennium CE agropastoral change. It applies archaeobotanical and biomolecular methods to numerous well-preserved plant macrofossils and herbivore dung pellets from rubbish dumps at nine Roman-Early Islamic trading sites in the Aravah valley on the southern border of modern Israel-Jordan and the adjacent Negev Highlands. Some sites are associated with Early Islamic agrotechnological introduction of qanat irrigation, indicating likely Early Islamic crop introduction there. Capitalising on the similarity of archaeological context alongside the dissimilarity of historic-economic context, the comparative method will be applied to these regions and periods.

To identify seasonal agropastoral rhythms, an extensive and innovative multi-proxy methodological study will analyse the contents of ancient dung pellets from the sites. New datasets generated from plant remains and coprolites will allow the synthesis of agropastoral developments at seasonal to millennial scales and the framing of findings in terms of ancient economic history and Mediterranean history. Lessons on agricultural continuity and change from the Negev-Aravah in the face of first millennium CE global climate change, plague and cultural conflict hold promise for improved understanding of the historical effects of environmental stressors. In unearthing such lessons, CroProLITE will contribute to long-term environmental risk assessment and reflection on current society’s future, offering a model for environmental humanities research.