ABSTRACT
There are many remains of Iron Age settlements in the hilly desert of the Central Negev and adjacent area of north-eastern Sinai. Detailed archaeological surveys in part of the region have so far uncovered about 350 Iron Age sites, containing 58 fortresses, 1195 dwelling structures, 360 animal pens, many cisterns, 30 threshing floors and 80 silos dug into the ground, as reported by Haiman (1994). The climate of the region is arid; the average annual rainfall ranges from about 125 mm in the north to 75 mm in the south (Bruins 1986). Geoarchaeological excavations at the site of Horvat Haluqim proved beyond doubt the existence of rainwater-harvesting agriculture in the Iron Age (Bruins and van der Plicht 2004). This was to be expected, as the region is too arid for normal rainfed farming. The many threshing floors and silos (Haiman 1994), if indeed dating to the Iron Age, are evidence of ancient farming that could only have been conducted successfully through irrigation by runoff rainwater, received from the surrounding catchments, arrested on each field by built terrace walls across the wadi. Wheat and barley require some 300 mm of rainfall to produce a reasonable yield and fruit trees even more. Only runoff water supply from local catchments could add sufficient water in addition to the low amounts (ca. 100 mm) of direct rainfall on the fields, in order to reach moisture levels in the soil comparable to 300-500 mm a year (Bruins 2003).
