ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the humans and animals in their socio-economic and environmental context. It provides the reassessment of economic strategies practiced in the Bronze and Iron Age period as reflected by the zoo archaeological record from numerous sites in the Southern Levant. Many scholars advocate the notion that a market economy was prevalent in the Bronze and Iron Age, that surplus was produced for export, urban centers functioned as marketplaces and animal products among other agricultural crops were used as a segment of exchange systems. The practice of animal husbandry in sedentary settlements is widespread and most likely took place in most rural as well as urban sites in the ancient Near East. If the survival subsistence strategy was prevalent, the zoo archaeological evidence should point to a conservative and self-sufficient economy that strived for preservation of the subsistence resources and for minimizing risks. Cattle abundance does not point to agricultural intensification.
