Please join us for our upcoming seminar on: "Plot-and-berm agroecosystems in sand hinterlands around the Mediterranean basin: A case of regional agri-cultural connectivity under Muslim rule?" by Dr. Itamar Taxel and Dr. Joel Roskin (Israel Antiquities Authority).

Monday, November 9, 2020, from 17:30 to 19:00 (Israel time) via zoom.

“Plot-and-berm” (P&B) agroecosystems consists of sophisticated agricultural utilization of a high-water table within loose, aeolian sand sheets. Sunken agricultural plots between 1-5 m high sand berms characterize P&B agroecosystems, situated in agricultural hinterlands. Berms are often coated with anthropogenic refuse to protect them from erosion. The agricultural plots, which lie slightly above the 1-4 m deep groundwater table, usually enable easy access to the water for crop roots and/or human water extraction. Refuse and organic material enrich the sandy soil in plots. The agroecosystems require significant resources for construction and maintenance, thus making their construction motivations intriguing.

The earliest recognized Mediterranean agroecosystems are dated to the Early Islamic period until the very beginning of the Crusader period (9^th-early 12^th centuries a.d.), and have thus far been identified in three or four locations along the Mediterranean coast of Israel. These systems were abandoned by an unclear reason. Though Arabic literature reviews have not found descriptions of P&Bs, this effort may be an original type of mawāt (Arabic: “dead”) land reclamation, an important issue in Islamic economic history. Known from Early Islamic juristic documents, mawāt refers to unowned wastelands. Islamic jurists prescribed rules for mawāt vivification and acquisition, typically cultivated with irrigation systems, such as qanats.

Some of the P&B agroecosystems around the Mediterranean basin date back to the late Middle Ages and early modern times: Ghout with multi-layered organization of palms and fruit trees, and herbaceous crops (since the 15^th century a.d.) in Saharan Algeria; masseira or gamela in the northern coast of Portugal; Navazo in southern Spain (since the 18^th century a.d.); and pre-modern mawasi in northern Sinai and Gaza Strip coast, which are still active. One arid inland dunefield margin in northern Iran also contains hundreds of P&Bs. Ghout and mawasi agriculture practice use mechanized water drilling and modifications of the berms and soil surface level in response to fluctuating shallow groundwater levels.

The early modern and contemporary agroecosystems may be an inherited or revived manifestation of the hypothesized original Early Islamic effort in coastal Israel. Such biocultural knowledge may have been slowly transmitted across the (mainly Islamic) Mediterranean populations via inter-cultural relationships, including migrants or merchants originating in the southern Levantine coast. The past P&B agroecosystems in arid and marginal zones are also a reminder that such environments may hold challenging potential for future agricultural exploitation.

Itamar Taxel received his Ph.D. in archaeology from Tel Aviv University in 2011. As of 2017 he works as the head of Pottery Specializations Branch at the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) Archaeological Research Department. He is involved with various fieldwork and research projects on behalf of the IAA as well as of Tel Aviv University and the Israel Nature and Parks Authority, including the Yavneh-Yam excavations, the Yavneh Map regional survey, and the multidisciplinary research (with Joel Roskin, IAA) of Early Islamic Plot and Berm agroecosystems along the Israeli coast and Mediterranean region. He has authored and co-authored four monographs and numerous articles and book chapters on the archaeology of Early Roman to Late Islamic Palestine.

Joel Roskin, who received his Ph.D. from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in 2012, established the Geomorphology and Portable Luminescence Laboratory at the Leon Recanati Institute for Maritime Studies, University of Haifa where he is a research associate. As of 2020 he works as a geoarchaeologist at the Analytical Laboratory of the Israel Antiquities Authority, where he is studying a broad scope of geoarchaeological issues for dozens of rescue excavations in Israel. He is also conducting multidisciplinary research (with Itamar Taxel, IAA) of Early Islamic Plot and Berm agroecosystems along the Israeli coast and Mediterranean region, and Middle Pleistocene to modern dune-damming processes in the northeastern Tibetan Plateau margins and the northwestern Negev desert (with Prof. L. Yu, Linyi U., China).