Drought stress variability in ancient Near Eastern agricultural systems evidenced by δ13C in barley grain.

The collapse and resilience of political systems in the ancient Near East and their relationship with agricultural development have been of wide interest in archaeology and anthropology. Despite attempts to link the archaeological evidence to local paleoclimate data, the precise role of environmental conditions in ancient agricultural production remains poorly understood. Recently, stable isotope analysis has been used for reconstructing site-specific ancient growing conditions for crop species in semiarid and arid landscapes.

Role of mass-kill hunting strategies in the extirpation of Persian gazelle (Gazella subgutturosa) in the northern Levant.

Continuous and intensive exploitation of wildlife resources by early agricultural societies had major ecological consequences in the ancient Near East. In particular, hunting strategies of post-Neolithic societies involving the mass killing of wild ungulates contributed to the eventual extirpation of a number of wild species. A remarkable deposit of bones of Persian gazelle (Gazella subgutarosa) from fourth millennium BCE levels at Tell Kuran in northeastern Syria provides insight into the unsustainable hunting practices that disrupted gazelle migratory patterns and helped set the course for the virtual extinction of this species and possibly other steppe species in the Levant.