Our knowledge of the origins of olive tree domestication in the Middle East and on the processes governing its extension and persistence in different vegetation types from prehistory through ...antiquity to modern times derives from diverse sources, spanning the biological sciences to the humanities. Nonetheless, it lacks a robust overview that may lead to floating interpretations. This is especially true in the Middle East, considered as the cradle of agriculture, and where the evolutionary history of this emblematic tree is intertwined with that of civilizations. Olive fruit, oil and wood have been, since Prehistoric times, characteristic products of the lands bordering the Mediterranean Sea. In the domestic economy of these countries, the olive tree gradually became a traditional tree crop since the first oil extraction, through the emergence of regional commerce that accompanied the rise and fall of early Near‐Middle Eastern urbanism, until the development of modern trade, with an oil production estimated at circa 3000000 tons per year. The rising importance of the olive tree in human life has turned the tree into an endless source of fascination in the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean, a symbol and a sacred tree, widely cited in the Bibles, the Koran, and in ancient literature. Here we argue that advances in radiocarbon chronology, palaeobotany, genetics, and archaeology‐history have profoundly refined the history of olive trees in the Middle East. This review shows that the heartland of primary olive domestication must be enlarged to the Levant and not only focus on the Jordan Valley. The domestication of the olive tree is a long and ongoing process, linked to the early production of oil and the development of the olive trade. We also suggest that the olive tree became a particular icon, a sacred tree, during the Biblical period in the Levant.
The Holocene vegetation history of the northern coastal Arabian Peninsula is of long-standing interest, as this Mediterranean/semiarid/arid region is known to be particularly sensitive to climatic ...changes. Detailed palynological data from an 800-cm alluvial sequence cored in the Jableh plain in northwest Syria have been used to reconstruct the vegetation dynamics in the coastal lowlands and the nearby Jabal an Nuşayriyah mountains for the period 2150 to 550 B.C. Corresponding with the 4.2 to 3.9 and 3.5 to 2.5 cal kyr BP abrupt climate changes (ACCs), two large-scale shifts to a more arid climate have been recorded. These two ACCs had different impacts on the vegetation assemblages in coastal Syria. The 3.5 to 2.5 cal kyr BP ACC is drier and lasted longer than the 4.2 to 3.9 cal kyr BP ACC, and is characterized by the development of a warm steppe pollen-derived biome (1100-800 B.C.) and a peak of hot desert pollen-derived biome at 900 B.C. The 4.2 to 3.9 cal kyr BP ACC is characterized by a xerophytic woods and shrubs pollen-derived biome ca. 2050 B.C. The impact of the 3.5 to 2.5 cal kyr BP ACC on human occupation and cultural development is important along the Syrian coast with the destruction of Ugarit and the collapse of the Ugarit kingdom at ca. 1190 to 1185 B.C.
The 13(th) century BC witnessed the zenith of the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean civilizations which declined at the end of the Bronze Age, ∼3200 years ago. Weakening of this ancient flourishing ...Mediterranean world shifted the political and economic centres of gravity away from the Levant towards Classical Greece and Rome, and led, in the long term, to the emergence of the modern western civilizations. Textual evidence from cuneiform tablets and Egyptian reliefs from the New Kingdom relate that seafaring tribes, the Sea Peoples, were the final catalyst that put the fall of cities and states in motion. However, the lack of a stratified radiocarbon-based archaeology for the Sea People event has led to a floating historical chronology derived from a variety of sources spanning dispersed areas. Here, we report a stratified radiocarbon-based archaeology with anchor points in ancient epigraphic-literary sources, Hittite-Levantine-Egyptian kings and astronomical observations to precisely date the Sea People event. By confronting historical and science-based archaeology, we establish an absolute age range of 1192-1190 BC for terminal destructions and cultural collapse in the northern Levant. This radiocarbon-based archaeology has far-reaching implications for the wider Mediterranean, where an elaborate network of international relations and commercial activities are intertwined with the history of civilizations.
STEP IT UP Liebman, Bonnie
Nutrition Action Health Letter,
07/2014, Letnik:
41, Številka:
6
Trade Publication Article
Liebman interviews Martin Gibala, professor and chair of the department of kinesiology at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. Gibala talks about getting fit with interval training.
Migala offers several tips to perform small workouts throughout the day. A workout snack, that is--a brief bout of exercise, as short as a minute, that, done consistently, can yield surprising health ...perks. Martin Gibala, PhD, professor of kinesiology at McMaster University in Ontario, Canada, said that the number 1 barrier to working out is lack of time. Exercise snacks help grab movement opportunities whenever one can. Many can be done in a small space in the home or office, don't require equipment, and may not even make one sweat. Emerging research shows that exercise snacks target two important components of fitness: cardiovascular health and metabolic health, both of which are linked to lower risks of type 2 diabetes and heart disease.
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