Many scholars avoid employing "legacy" datasets, even if accessible, because of perceived unknowns in using data collected by others. This study explored issues in using data generated by other analysts. Three researchers independently analyzed a legacy, decades-old zooarchaeological dataset and then compared their analytical approaches and results. Although they took a similar initial approach to determine the dataset's suitability for analysis, the three researchers generated markedly different interpretive conclusions. In examining how researchers use legacy data, this paper highlights interpretive issues, data integrity concerns, and data documentation needs. In order to meet these needs, this paper proposes greater formalism and professional recognition for data dissemination, favoring models of "data publication" over "data sharing" or "data archiving".
Summary
The process and date of the Philistine settlement in Canaan have received a great deal of scholarly attention. As well, scholars have also devoted much attention to the expansion of Philistine interaction with Levantine societies prior to the Philistines' assimilation in the late Iron Age. While most studies view Philistine integration and acculturation as a gradual process, a close examination of the detailed faunal and ceramic evidence suggests otherwise. It appears that due to various processes of boundary maintenance, the Philistines maintained high ethnic boundaries with their neighbours for at least 150–200 years, before (quite suddenly) losing most of their unique traits in the tenth century BC.
We use faunal evidence from Khirbat al-Mudayna al-ʿAliya, an agropastoral settlement located in west-central Jordan, to examine early Iron Age subsistence regimes. Analysis of faunal evidence reveals a low-intensity, nonspecialized animal economy dependent on both domesticated and wild species, including freshwater crabs. The subsistence economy of the settlement, we argue, was structured so as to take maximum advantage of its location overlooking the Wadi al-Nukhayla, a perennial water source supporting a relatively verdant floral and faunal array. This diverse and flexible organization made subsistence in this resource-scarce environment more sustainable. When this profile is compared with other early Iron Age southern Levantine communities, the diversity of ways that animal economies were organized during this period is apparent, signaling the need to investigate the local strategies that communities used to adapt to their immediate environmental circumstances, not only ecologically but also socially.
The discovery of a sacrificed puppy at Tel Miqne-Ekron, a major Philistine settlement in Israel's southern coastal plain, highlights the role of dogs in Iron I Philistia. Though dog sacrifice is described in Hittite religious texts and attested in lands bordering the Aegean during the second–first millennia BCE, evidence for this practice, or even of dog bones, is largely absent from Late Bronze and non-Philistine Iron I (ca. 1550–1000 BCE) Levantine contexts. What distinguishes the Tel Miqne-Ekron puppy interment from later Persian- and Hellenistic-period dog burials, is the placement of its severed head between its hind legs. Microscopic analyses of cut marks on several vertebrae indicate that the iron knife found nearby was likely used in its decapitation. This article examines the Tel Miqne-Ekron puppy burial within its eastern Mediterranean milieu and explores the ritual role of dogs and cynophagy (dog-eating) in second–first millennia society.
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