The site of Khirbet Beit Loya is located in the central lowlands of Israel. In the middle of this multiperiod site sits the medieval Islamic village: it occupies the summit of a low hill that offers view of Ashkelon and the Mediterranean coast, Gaza, and the Hebron hills. The extensive village ruins one sees today dates to the Mamluk era, having been suddenly abandoned sometime in the 15th century CE. With the funding provided by the Dana Grant for Israel, we are documenting cultivation strategies and soil enrichment practices from the nearby terraced fields (which are dated by OSL), and comparing them to crop processing and consumption practices in the village. The soil samples were taken from floors and middens of houses, a subterranean stable, and relic agricultural terraces and sent to three laboratories in the U.S. and Europe.
The macrobotanical work has been done by Dr. Kathleen Forste, a postdoctoral scholar at Brown University. Thirty flotation samples were collected in the field by the excavation team, and exported for analysis at Brown University. The first stage of analysis focused on the seeds, fruits, and plant parts. The crops identified are bread/hard wheat, barley, fava bean, along with barley rachis pieces (chaff), and a suite of seeds from wild plants that grow along hillsides and steppe areas (Bromus sp., bromegrass; Trifolium sp., clover) and others that typically grow as field weeds (Lolium cf. temulentum, darnel; Onobrychus sp., sainfoin). The presence of crop seeds, cereal chaff, and agricultural weed seeds suggests local cultivation and processing/cleaning of annual cereals and pulses. Notably absent from this assemblage are fruits such as olive, grape, and date, which were common staples in the past, just like today.
