Crop husbandry and agricultural strategies of early urban systems in the northern Fertile Crescent of the Bronze Age

Abstract

The aim of the current study is to analyse major crop and arable weed plant material from three archaeological sites, Tell Mohammed ‘Arab, Tell Brak and Alalakh in order to investigate crop husbandry and agricultural strategies across the northern Fertile Crescent in especially the Late Bronze Age of the second millennium BC. The existing models require agricultural output to increase substantially over a period of several thousand years. With some recent exceptions, how this was achieved, whether by increasing the area of land under cultivation (extensification) or the amount produced per unit of land, by increasing inputs in terms of soil working, water and/or fertiliser (intensification), has not been established to any reasonable extent based on the remains of crop production themselves. The new data on crop spectra and associated arable weed taxa is analysed using weed functional ecology and crop stable isotope analysis, which provide direct evidence of crop growing conditions and consequently the nature of land management practices. The reconstruction of ancient crop husbandry practices drawn from weed functional ecology and crop stable isotope results demonstrates that contemporary farmers endeavoured to promote agricultural output by increasing the unit of land under cultivation rather than by increasing the amount produced per area of land, inputs in terms of soil working or water and/or fertiliser. The archaeobotanical assemblages provide a certain diversity of cropping strategies and relatively extensive/low-intensity regimes, depending especially on settlement scale. Overall, a strong correlation is observed among these different dimensions of agricultural activity, urbanisation cycles and environmental settings.