Dead Sea pollen record and history of human activity in the Judean Highlands (Israel) from the Intermediate Bronze into the Iron Ages (∼2500–500 BCE)
Abstract
A detailed pollen record for the time interval of ∼2500–500 BCE, which covers the time period of the Intermediate Bronze Age (Early Bronze Age IV) into the Iron Ages in the Levant, is presented. The study was conducted in the Ze’elim Gully, which drains the southern Judean Highlands into the Dead Sea. During the Bronze and Iron Ages, the Judean Highlands exhibited dramatic settlement fluctuations. To better understand these oscillations, high-resolution fossil pollen data were combined with a recent pollen data set, lithological features, radiocarbon dating and palaeohydrological information derived from the Dead Sea levels. Due to the occurrence of hiatuses in this fluvial environment, we used a composite profile which was based on two palynological-sedimentological profiles. This integrated information enabled us to reconstruct in great detail for the first time the environmental conditions in relation to the picture derived from archaeological field-work in the Judean Highlands. Evidence for drier climate conditions at the end of the Late Bronze Age may account for the dramatic changes in the settlement pattern which include the destruction of a large number of urban centres and shrinkage of other major sites, not only in the Judean Highlands but in the entire southern Levant. This arid phase may have been one of the reasons for the collapse of eastern Mediterranean civilizations in the mid-thirteenth and twelfth centuries BCE. The improved conditions in the Judean highlan…
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
A major dry climate event in the Eastern Mediterranean and Ancient Near East in the Late Bronze Age has recently been detected in pollen records from sediment cores from the Sea of Galilee and the Dead Sea, the coast of Syria, Cyprus and the Nile Delta.
“This climate crisis has recently been detected in studies of pollen records in sediment cores from the Sea of Galilee and the Dead Sea (LANGGUT, FINKELSTEIN and LITT 2013; LANGGUT et al. 2014), the coast of Syria (KANIEWSKI et al. 2010; SORREL and MATHIS 2016), Cyprus (KANIEWSKI et al. 2013) and the Nile Delta (BERNHARDT, HORTON and STANLY 2012).”
From Egyptian Imperial Economy in Canaan: Reaction to the Climate Crisis at the End of the Late Bronze Age (2017) · cites this paper as LANGGUT et al. 2014
The Sea of Galilee and Dead Sea studies provide a relatively accurate date of the dry period to c. 1250-1100 BCE.
“The Sea of Galilee and Dead Sea studies provide a relatively accurate date of the dry period to c. 1250-1100 BCE -approximately in parallel to the period of growth in SORXJK FDWWOH DQG ÀLQW WRROV UHODWHG WR KDUYHVWLQJ DW Megiddo and the peak in cereal pollen at the Sea of Galilee.”
From Egyptian Imperial Economy in Canaan: Reaction to the Climate Crisis at the End of the Late Bronze Age (2017) · cites this paper as LANGGUT et al. 2014
Cites
Chronology of the Early Bronze Age in the Southern Levant: New Analysis for a High Chronology
Regev, J., De Miroschedji, P., Greenberg, R., Braun, E., Greenhut, Z., & Boaretto, E. (2012) · Radiocarbon · doi:10.1017/s003382220004724x · Cited by 209 · cited 4× · see citing works
“Based on the Ramat Rahel pollen assemblages, J. regia was introduced in the northern Judean Highlands not later than the Persian period (fifthforth century BCE; Langgut et al. 2013b).”
BackgroundInfluentialSelf-citation
Flagged first, then by citations
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Finkelstein, I., Langgut, D., Meiri, M., & Sapir-Hen, L. (2017) · Ägypten und Levante · doi:10.1553/aeundl27s249 · Cited by 53 · see citing works
Self-citationMaaranen, N., Zakrzewski, S., & Schutkowski, H. (2022) · Current Anthropology · doi:10.1086/723141 · Cited by 4 · see citing works
- Authors
- Langgut, D., Neumann, F. H., Stein, M., Wagner, A., Kagan, E. J., Boaretto, E., & Finkelstein, I.
- Affiliations
- Tel Aviv University (IL)
- University of the Witwatersrand (ZA)
- Hebrew University of Jerusalem (IL)
- Weizmann Institute of Science (IL)
- Corresponding author
- Langgut, Dafna
- ORCID
- Venue
- Palynology
- Publisher
- Informa UK Limited
- Published
- 2014-05-13
- Volume
- 38
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 280-302
- ISSN
- 0191-6122 (ISSN-L)
- 1558-9188
- OpenAlex
- W2148535412
- Cited by
- 103
- References
- 1
- Citations by year
- 2026: 5 · 2025: 2 · 2024: 6 · 2023: 8 · 2022: 7 · 2021: 5 · 2020: 15 · 2019: 7 · 2018: 8 · 2017: 9 · 2016: 8 · 2015: 13 · 2014: 10
- FWCI
- 9.73
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Palynology (publishedVersion)
- BioOne Complete (BioOne) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- Hebrew University of Jerusalem
- Tel Aviv University
- Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Earth and Planetary Sciences › Paleontology › Archaeology and ancient environmental studies
- Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Soil Science › Soil and Environmental Studies
- Physical Sciences › Earth and Planetary Sciences › Atmospheric Science › Geology and Paleoclimatology Research
- Keywords
- pollen record, Dead Sea, Bronze Age, Iron Age, settlement history, Bronze Age collapse, climate change, paleohydrology, Levant archaeology, ancient Israel, olive cultivation, cereal cultivation, Mediterranean climate
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
