The vegetational landscape of the negev during antiquity as evident from archaeological wood remains

Twenty years of dendroarchaeological investigations in the Negev permit the reconstruction of the vegetational landscape and the macroclimate of the area during antiquity. The research is based on timber identification up to the species level, based on the microscopical three-dimensional structure of the wood. About 5000 wood samples were analyzed. Samples were obtained from 35 archaeological sites located in the northern Negev, central Negev, Arava Valley, and Dead Sea regions, and dated to different periods of time along the archaeological profile. Results show that the same natural arboreal vegetation which today characterizes the different regions of the Negev characterized them also during antiquity, from the PPNA until the Early Arab period. Microclimatic variations, evident from dendrochronological studies available for the region, were too small to cause changes in the arboreal vegetational landscape during the Holocene.