Dr. Suzie Pilaar Birch, associate professor of anthropology at the University of Georgia, recently published two open-access research articles exploring ancient agropastoral practices in the Eastern Mediterranean. These publications contribute to a growing body of work on how early agricultural societies responded to environmental conditions and managed their landscapes. As lead author, Dr. Pilaar Birch’s article Domestic herbivore mobility and herd management at Bronze Age Politiko-Troullia, Cyprus appears in Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences. The study uses stable isotope analysis of goat, sheep, and cattle teeth from the site of Politiko-Troullia to reveal species-specific herding strategies. The findings show that goats were managed with greater mobility and had more varied diets, while sheep and cattle were more constrained and likely received dietary supplementation. These findings reveal nuanced herd management techniques in a pre-urban Bronze Age Cypriot community. Dr. Pilaar Birch is also a co-author of Bronze Age agropastoral management in central Cyprus and along the Jordan Rift, published in Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports. This comparative study draws on botanical, faunal, and isotopic data from four sites across Cyprus and the Southern Levant to reconstruct how ancient communities adapted their fuel use, crop cultivation, and animal management practices to different environmental settings. Both articles are part of Dr. Birch’s ongoing NSF-funded research supported by the grants Long-term Societal Reaction to Environmental Change”(awarded in 2019) and Long Term Agrarian Responses to Environmental Stress (awarded in 2021). Her upcoming fieldwork in Sicily will extend this work under a new 2024 NSF award, Climate Change and Agricultural Responses in Ancient Mediterranean Socio-Environmental Systems. Photo: Artistic illustration of the landscape around the Early Bronze IV village at Tell Abu en-Ni‘aj, Jordan. View facing south depicts fields and pastures along the Jordan Rift, which is bounded by the Transjordanian Plateau to the east and the Southern Levantine Central Hills to the west. In the foreground, village houses, sherd-paved streets, a broad room temple, and lamb burials in the temple forecourt are depicted on the basis of remains excavated from Phase 6 (modeled ∼ 2483–2452 cal BCE). Artwork by Gary James.
