Quatrième

QUATRIÈME PARTIE

 

ÉTUDES DIVERSES

CHAPITRE 20

 

NOTES ON THE ANIMAL REMAINS

FROM THE ACROPOLIS OF TEL YARMUTH

 

Simon J. M. DAVIS

Laboratório de Arqueociências, DGPC, Lisbon

 

A comprehensive report on the animal remains from Tel Yarmuth, including the small

collection found in the soundings on the acropolis, will be published at a later date.1 Here

is a brief description of some 170 bones identified and recorded from the acropolis.

 

In Table 20.1 are the counts of teeth and bones from the acropolis soundings:

 

Period Cattle Sheep/Goat (Sheep) (Goat) Pig Equid Fallow deer Fox Fish

Roman 3 37 (5) (6) 2 – – – –

Iron I 9 39 (3) (11) – – 2 – –

LB II 11 24 (–) (3) 3 1 – – +

EB III 3 36 (6) (4) – + – + –

 

Table 20.1. Counts of teeth and bones from the soundings on the Tel Yarmuth acropolis.

 

The method of recording bones and teeth is described in Davis. 1 With so few animal

remains in the acropolis it is not possible to draw many definite conclusions about the

animal economy and its change from Bronze Age to Roman times. However, we can say

that the animal economy was based primarily upon cattle, sheep, goat and pig. In this

respect Yarmuth is little different from most sites in the Levant of the fourth and subsequent

millennia BCE.2 Equids were present too, and some hunting and fishing is attested by

the presence of both fallow deer and fish bones. One interesting question of considerable

cultural/religious importance is the extent to which pork was consumed. With only five

remains of pig in the four periods discussed here at Yarmuth, little can be inferred that is of

any relevance.

At Yarmuth (lower city) the percentages of caprines range from 84 per cent in the EB II

to approximately 90 per cent in the EB III. In the acropolis this percentage in the Iron Age

and Roman deposits is little different. Few caprine bones are easy to identify to species.

Exceptions are metacarpals, metatarsals and astragali. Separation of these bones to species

indicates that there were probably five sheep to every two goats in the Early Bronze Age

at the lower city of Tel Yarmuth. Due to their richer milk and fine wool one might consider

the sheep in some respects somewhat superior to the goat – today the Bakhtiari of Persia

 

1 Davis, in prep.

2 See for example Horwitz and Tchernov 1989; Grigson 1996.

486 S . DAVIS

 

consider the goat to be the “sheep of the poor”.3 We might therefore speculate that the high

sheep to goat ratio at Yarmuth means that its inhabitants, or the pastoralists in the environs,

were relatively wealthy. Note, however, that this ratio appears to have become reversed in

the subsequent Iron Age and Roman deposits of the acropolis. This could (the samples are

admittedly very small) reflect a decline in the status of Tel Yarmuth and/or general impov-

erishment of the region.

 

Fig. 20.1. Deer antler (K.10670-2, Sounding 2, Stratum Acr-V, L.1186 floor).

 

Fig. 20.2. Fragment of an antler (K.10607-1, Sounding 2, Stratum Acr-IB1, L.1179, floor).

 

3 Digard 1981, p. 28.

20 . NOTES ON THE ANIMAL REMAINS FROM THE ACROPOLIS OF TEL YARMUTH 487

 

REFERENCES

 

DAVIS, S. J. M. (in prep.)

“More Animal Bones from Tel Yarmouth: an Early Bronze Age Site in Israel”.

DIGARD, J.-P.

1981 Techniques des nomades Baxtyari d’Iran. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

GRIGSON, C.

1996 “Plough and Pasture in the Early Economy of the Southern Levant,” in The Archaeology

of Society in the Holy Land, edited by T. E. Levy, pp. 245–268. London: Leicester University Press.

HORWITZ, L. K. and TCHERNOV, E.

1989 “Animal Exploitation in the Early Bronze Age of the Southern Levant: An Over-

view,” in L’urbanisation de la Palestine à l’âge du Bronze ancien (Oxford, BAR Inter-national Series 527 [ii]), edited by P. de Miroschedji, pp. 279–296. Oxford: BAR.