Recent zooarchaeological analyses of game exploitation in the Epipalaeolithic of the Southern Levant identify a decline in large game in the Natufian, with corresponding increase in small prey, interpreted as hunting pressure driven by population expansion. To date, studies focus on the Mediterranean zone. This paper adopts similar approaches to examine Epipalaeolithic to Neolithic faunal data from 16 sites in the steppic Jordanian Azraq Basin. Results here reveal very different trends. Large game, mainly equids, fluctuate throughout the Epipalaeolithic, due to climatic conditions and available water/vegetation. Cattle thrive in the Azraq oasis, showing no decline in the Late Epipalaeolithic. Gazelle exploitation is predominant and sustainable throughout the Epipalaeolithic, even at Kharaneh IV and Wadi Jilat 6 ‘megasites’. However, PPNB assemblages from the limestone steppe show intensive game exploitation resulting from longer-stay settlement. The focused gazelle-hunting camp at Dhuweila in the basalt desert also shows pressure from indiscriminate culling impacting herd demography, interpreted as providing meat for onwards exchange. Human impacts on steppe fauna appear both local and in many cases short-term, unlike the large-game suppression reported from west of the Rift Valley. Resource pressures and game over-kill, whether population-driven or otherwise, are not currently apparent east of the Jordan River.

This study presents an assessment of the potential application of Mn content in rock varnish laminae as a paleoclimate indicator. To investigate the environmental controls on varnish formation, we determined Mn composition in rock varnish formed on flint artifacts produced during the earliest Holocene from eight coeval prehistoric sites in the Negev desert, Israel. These sites lie along a north–south annual rainfall transect ranging between 120 and 30 mm yr− 1. The varnish is ~ 100 times enriched in Mn relative to the content in the desert dust source material. Chemical profiles across the varnish display 4–6 distinct Mn peaks in all sampled sites, pointing to systematic fluctuations within the varnish along a wide range of environmental settings. The mean Mn contents in the various sites range between 10.7 and 15.6 at.%, yet within this range, the Mn content in the Negev varnish does not show a correlation with mean annual rainfall. As moisture is needed for Mn mobility, wetting cycles by dew or light rain, which are not adequately represented by the mean annual rainfall amounts but control the number of wetting–drying cycles may explain the variance within the results from the arid and hyperarid Negev varnish.

Evidence for a Neolithic funeral feast has been excavated in northern Israel. A herd of eight wild cattle (aurochs) were slaughtered and joints of their meat placed in a pit which was covered over and the human burial laid on top. This was covered in turn with plaster, but the human skull was later removed through an accurately sited hole. It was the feast that began this funerary sequence, and the authors conservatively calculate that it provided a minimum of 500kg of meat. Given a 200g steak apiece this could theoretically feed some 2500 people, endorsing the authors' claim that the site was a central cult site serving surrounding villages. It is also suggested that the aurochs skulls, missing from the pit, may have been reserved for ritual purposes elsewhere, an early example of the Near Eastern bull cult that was later to have a long history in Europe.