Abstract
During the last two decades, a concentrated effort has been made to integrate macro- and micro-archaeology, in the field and in the lab, in the context of the Tell es-Safi/Gath Archaeological Project. In this paper, I discuss the concepts and methods behind this inter- and multidisciplinary approach to field archaeology, and expand on several examples of such work, including aspects relating to on-site sampling for carbon-14 dating, early Philistine metallurgy and plaster production, Early Bronze Age (Canaanite) and Iron Age (Philistine) hearths, and evidence for the physical manifestations of a site-wide destruction of the site during the Iron Age IIA. In addition, I discuss insights that have resulted from two decades of intense interdisciplinary research.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Title of host publication | One World Archaeology |
| Publisher | Springer Nature |
| Pages | 35-50 |
| Number of pages | 16 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - 2018 |
Publication series
| Name | One World Archaeology |
|---|---|
| ISSN (Print) | 2625-8641 |
| ISSN (Electronic) | 2625-865X |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© 2018, Springer International Publishing AG.
Funding
3Excavation and research on the EB levels at Tell es-Safi/Gath was funded by a grant from the Canadian Social Science and Humanities Research Council to Haskel Greenfield (University of Manitoba) and Aren M. Maeir (Bar-Ilan University). I would like to thank the staff and team members of the Tell es-Safi/Gath Archaeological Project for their dedicated work in excavating, analyzing, and interpreting the finds from Tell es-Safi/Gath. In particular, I am particularly grateful to Prof. Steve Weiner, of the Weizmann Institute in Rehovot, for spearheading the implementation of the micro-archaeology program at the excavations. In addition, thanks to the area and square supervisors in charge of the various excavation areas discussed in this article: R. Avissar, J. Chadwick, A. Dagan, H. Greenfield, L. Hitchcock, J. Katz, S. Kissos, C. Shafer-Elliott, I. Shai, J. Uziel, E. Welch, and A. Zukerman. From the micro-archaeological side, I would like to thank Y. Asscher, E. Boaretto, S. Gur-Arieh, A. Eliyahu, D. Namdar, J. Regev, L. Regev, R. Shahack-Gross, M. Toffolo, C. Trueman, and N. Yahalom for the various micro-archaeological analyses conducted both on-site and off-site. This research was partially funded by grants from the Israel Science Foundation (#100/2013 to AMM), the Canadian Social Science and Humanities Research Council (#895-2011-1005 to H. Greenfield and AMM), and the Kushitzky Fund of Bar-Ilan University.
| Funders | Funder number |
|---|---|
| Kushitzky Fund of Bar-Ilan University | |
| University of Manitoba | |
| Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada | 895-2011-1005 |
| Israel Science Foundation | 100/2013 |
Keywords
- Archaeological science
- Carbon-14
- Destruction
- Early Bronze Age
- Hearths
- Iron Age
- Metallurgy
- Micro-archaeology
- Plaster
- Tell es-Safi/Gath