The wheat people of Canaan

he Late Bronze Age was a period of massive inter-regional trade relationshipsin the eastern Mediterranean, when various staple crops and luxury food itemswere intensively transported. Here we present an attempt to reconstruct thefood basket and agricultural economy in the region of the Shephelah duringthe Late Bronze Age, when the Southern Levant was ruled by Egypt throughadministrative and military outposts, and was active in trade with other partsof the ancient Near East, as was shown by numerous studies (e.g. Haldane1993; Panitz-Cohen 2013: 535–54). The data of plant remains from Tel Batash/Timnah, Tel Miqne/ Ekron and Tell es-Safi/Gath enable reconstruction of thegeneral pattern of local diet and aspects of the local agriculture of this part ofCanaan. Quantitative analysis of the plant remains suggest several local eco-nomic patterns: (i) the region was a wheat granary, i.e. it specialized in twotypes of wheat, which represent diversity of agricultural practices and foodpreferences; (ii) variation in legume species may reflect variation in specializa-tion and foreign cultural ties within the region.