Our archaeological integration of previous archaeological work in the study region with our own high-resolution surveys and excavations has yielded a detailed record of human settlement intensity in the study region. The team has also surveyed all the known leopard traps in the region, and dated the age of their construction using a method known as Optically Stimulated Luminiscence. These two major efforts enabled us to quantify the peaks and troughs of human activity in the southern Judean Desert. Our results attest a quick growth of the major settlement in the Ein Gedi Oasis during the 8th century BC. With some shifts in size and location of the settlement core, the major settlement lasted until the 6th century AD, after which a long period of abandonment followed, punctuated by a short-lived, small village that emerged in the oasis during the Middle Ages. Surprisingly, this period of settlement abatement also witnessed a peak in leopard trap construction, suggesting that top-predator hunting was carried out by nomads.
While investigating human settlements and stone-built leopard traps, our team also surveyed more than 60 cave in the escrapments and wadis of the study region. The mixed and turbated biological deposits of these caves, containing dung, bones, and nesting materials, held the key to understanding the changes in the mammalian foodweb through time. Animal bones of the local top-predators (leopards) and their favorite prey (hyrax and ibex) that accumulated in the caves can be dated using radiocarbon to provide a notion of the change in the relative abundance of each species through time. Our analysis of the radiocarbon results suggested that the leopard population suffered a precipitous decline during the millennia of human settlement and intensive hunting, while the hyrax and ibex populations burgeoned. This trophic cascade effect is supported by preliminary genetic results. Upon their final publication, we will have completed our mission with success — leaving behind us a lot of questions and future trails to follow.
Our work has been made available to the public through publication in scientific venues, including the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (PNAS), Scientific Reports, Journal of Human Evolution, and Quaternary Science Reviews, and has been reported in online and physical scientific meetings and conferences.
