Mediterranean Resilience - Collapse and Adaptation in Antique Maritime Societies - Assaf Yasur-Landau
A 12th-Century BCE Shipwreck Assemblage Containing Copper Ingots, from Neve-Yam, Israel
Mediterranean Resilience - Collapse and Adaptation in Antique Maritime Societies - Assaf Yasur-Landau
Ehud Galili [+]
University of Haifa
Ehud Galili (PhD) is a marine archaeologist and research fellow at the University of Haifa,
Israel. He is an advising professor, co-directing the project BEFOREtheFLOOD, who has
been studying the submerged Neolithic settlements off the Carmel Coast since 1984. Galili has conducted underwater archaeological surveys off the Israeli coast and established and directed (1990–2004) the marine unit of the Israel Antiquities Authority. As a member of the national Committee for the Protection of the Coastal Environment since 2004, he produced policy documents and risk assessment surveys aimed at managing and protecting underwater heritage. His research interest include submerged settlements, sea level changes, coastal tectonics, ancient shipwrecks, cargoes, fishing instruments and salt production, and underwater heritage.
Dafna Langgut [+]
Tel Aviv University
Dafna Langgut is Head of the Laboratory of Archaeobotany and Ancient Environments and Senior Lecturer at the Department of Archaeology at Tel Aviv University, Israel. Langgut specializes in the study of past vegetation and climate based on the identification of botanical remains (pollen and wood-charcoal remains). Through this discipline, she considers the past relationship between humans and the environment—for example, human dispersal out of Africa and the beginning of agriculture. Langgut’s research also involves the identification of plant remains from archaeological contexts. Her studies address issues such as fruit-tree cultivation, diet, plant usage, plant migration, and ancient gardens.
Ehud Arkin Shalev [+]
University of Haifa
Ehud Arkin Shalev is a postdoctoral fellow at the Department of Geography and Environmental Studies, University of Haifa, and Adjunct Lecturer at the Ono Academic College. He has earned a PhD in Maritime Civilizations and a bachelor’s degree cum laude in Economics. Arkin Shalev is a maritime archaeologist who has excavated and surveyed extensively underwater. His interests are in eastern Mediterranean historic and
protohistoric seafaring cultures, and his current research focuses on Iron Age maritime economic strategies, with an emphasis on shifting niche markets.
Baruch Rosen [+]
Independent scholar
Baruch Rosen, born in 1935 in Tel Aviv, earned his BSc at the University of Washington, and a PhD at North Carolina State University in 1969. Rosen was Senior Scientist and Head of the Food Science Laboratory, at the Ministry of Health of Israel and taught courses in Food and Agriculture Sciences at the Faculty of Agriculture, Hebrew University at Rehovot and courses on paleo-subsistence at the Institute of Archaeology, Tel Aviv
University. Retired, Baruch volunteers at the Israel Antiquities Authority and is currently an independent scholar in archaeology and history of material culture, with research interests and publications in food science, food microbiology, food in antiquity, ancient and traditional subsistence systems, and general marine archaeology.
Naama Yahalom-Mack [+]
Hebrew University
Naama Yahalom-Mack is an associate professor at the Institute of Archaeology, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and holder of the Nahman Avigad Chair in Biblical Archaeology. She is a codirector of the Tel Abel Beth Maacah excavations and the head of the Laboratory for Archaeological Materials and Ancient Technologies. Her research interests focus on archaeometallurgy, the provenancing of archaeological materials
as a proxy for reconstructing ancient trade interaction, and the incorporation of scientific analytic methods in archaeology.
Isaac Ogloblin Ramirez [+]
University of Haifa
Isaac Ogloblin Ramirez, an underwater geoarchaeologist, is a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Haifa. His main interest is deciphering submerged prehistoric sites using micro-geoarchaeology. Ogloblin Ramirez works at terrestrial and underwater sites throughout the Mediterranean and participates in four projects, (1) investigating pyro-technology during the Chalcolithic and Early Bronze at ‘Ein Asawir (Israel); (2) collaborating with the ERC project BEFOREtheFLOOD, studying submerged Neolithic sites off the Carmel Coast (Israel); (3) codirecting underwater surveys in Sicily to detect the earliest human occupation of the island (Italy); and (4) exploring the Antikythera shipwreck (Greece) as a geoarchaeologist and diving member.
Assaf Yasur-Landau [+]
University of Haifa
Assaf Yasur-Landau is Professor of Mediterranean Archaeology, Head of the Recanati Institute of Maritime Studies, founder of the Laboratory for Coastal Archaeology and Underwater Survey, and cofounder of the School of Archaeology and Maritime Cultures at the University of Haifa. He studies mobility, ancient economy, and human adaptation in the Mediterranean during the Bronze and Iron Ages. Currently, he codirects the excavations of the Canaanite palace at Tel Kabri and the underwater excavations at Tel Dor. Yasur-Landau has penned about a hundred articles and is the author or editor of eight books and volumes, including The Philistines and Aegean Migration in the Late Bronze Age (Cambridge University Press 2010, 2014).
Description
A shipwreck assemblage from the Neve-Yam bay is described, reevaluated, and discussed in relation to the associated artifacts recovered at its site, including copper ingots, stone anchors, hematite weights, bronze artifacts, and pottery. Taking into consideration the site formation and postdepositional processes and the possible dating of the various finds, based on their typology, a radiocarbon date, and the suggested provenance of the copper ingots in the ‘Araba Valley, the cargo is dated to the transition period between the Late Bronze Age and the Iron Age (twelfth century BCE) known as the “crisis years.” The maritime activity and trading routes of metal in the eastern Mediterranean during these years are discussed, suggesting that the Neve-Yam shipwreck provides direct evidence for inland and maritime transport of copper during this time, when evidence for international maritime activity along the Syro-Canaanite-Anatolian coast is scarce. A holistic view from the Middle Bronze Age till Iron Age II is provided, indicating the oscillations of Mediterranean maritime activities, based on the underwater and inland finds from the southern Levant.