Always a Hunter

Abstract

By the Late Bronze and Iron Ages in the southern Levant, livestock animals were the dominant meat source, and wild animals constituted a very small supplementary proportion of economy. As a result, wild animals often receive limited attention in studies of these periods. This article aims to examine the role of wild animals based on a large body of published zooarchaeological data. By studying temporal changes in species presence and frequencies, the study tracks the local diminution in several wild species; reveals a clear preference for hunting deer in sites of the Iron Ages, regardless of changes in local landscape; and shows that various other wild animals can be correlated to assemblages that are identified with Egyptian presence. Based on these observations and with correlation to historic events and cultural changes, wild animals’ roles in the economic and symbolic world of past societies are discussed.