Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jasrep Hunting in the Negev: Insights from the Late Epipaleolithic fauna of Ramat Harif Natalie D. Munro a, ⁎ , Roxanne Lebenzon a , Avi Gopher b , A. Nigel Goring-Morris c a Department of Anthropology, Unit 1176, 354 Mansfield Road, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT 06269, United States b Institute of Archaeology, Tel-Aviv University, POB 39040, 69978 Tel Aviv, Israel c Institute of Archaeology, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 91905, Israel ARTICLE INFO Keywords: Zooarchaeology Demography Site occupation intensity Mobility Epipaleolithic Gazelle Ibex Southern Levant Harifian Natufian Desert ABSTRACT The Negev Desert, an arid region of the southern Levant, was only occasionally suited for human occupation in prehistory. Archaeological sites are especially abundant in the Epipaleolithic periods, likely due to changes in the availability and distribution of water resources. We consider how hunter-gatherers adapted to this sometimes marginal region by investigating human demography, site occupation intensity and population mobility by revisiting the zooarchaeological assemblage from the Late Epipaleolithic, Harifian site of Ramat Harif (12,650/ 12,500–11,650 cal. BP) in the Central Highlands of the Negev. A near exclusive focus on ungulate species at Ramat Harif indicates efficient hunting overall. Nevertheless, high proportions of juvenile ibex and gazelle suggest intensive hunting of these two species. The rarity of other taxa in the diet indicates that they stopped short of depressing ungulate prey. Small variation in the body-part representation and age structure of the ungulates from Ramat Harif and other Late Epipaleolithic Negev sites may be linked to seasonality and their relative proximity to ibex and gazelle territories. The Negev pattern diverges from the adjacent Mediterranean zone where local Natufian populations hunted more diverse taxa, particularly small game. This pattern un- doubtedly reflects higher occupation intensity and larger human populations in the Mediterranean zone as well as lower net primary production and biodiversity in the Negev desert. 1. Introduction The rich and diverse Late Epipaleolithic record of the southern Levant has stimulated more than a century of research aimed at de- fining local cultural variation and its role in stimulating the transition to agriculture. Although most research has focused on the better-wa- tered Mediterranean zone, extensive survey and fieldwork has been undertaken in the arid and semi-arid regions of the Negev and Sinai, especially during the 1970s, 80s and 90s (Goring-Morris, 1987; Goring- Morris and Belfer-Cohen, 2013; Marks, 1976, 1977). Numerous ar- chaeological sites, most of them small and ephemeral, were identified in this region. Most of these dated to the Epipaleolithic period, a time when the Negev was more hospitable for human habitation. Of these, a handful of Late Epipaleolithic sites included architecture and deeper archaeological deposits. Several of these sites cluster near Har Harif in the central Negev highlands (Fig. 1) and are attributable to the Harifian culture, a Late Epipaleolithic entity distinguished from the Natufian based primarily on aspects of the chipped stone lithic assemblages (Goring-Morris, 1987, 1991; Marks and Scott, 1976; Scott, 1977). Many years have passed since new faunal data emerged from these Negev sites. For the most part, faunal remains preserve poorly in the shallow loessial and sandy sediments of the region, and thus mobility and settlement strategies have been reconstructed largely from lithic and site records. Nevertheless, sizeable faunal assemblages were re- covered from the best protected and deepest deposits of Rosh Horesha, Abu Salem and Ramat Harif (Butler et al., 1977; Davis et al., 1982; Goring-Morris, 1987 reports unpublished data collected by Davis). Given the paucity of published faunal data, and the large size of these assemblages, we have restudied the fauna from Ramat Harif (G-VIII) in detail. Our goals are to reopen the conversation concerning the Harifian and wider Late Epipaleolithic adaptations in the northern and central Negev and to delve more deeply into human adaptive strategies in this marginal region by focusing on human demography, site occupation intensity and population mobility. We studied the complete faunal assemblage from Ramat Harif to investigate several aspects of the Late Epipaleolithic adaptation of the https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jasrep.2020.102571 Received 16 May 2020; Received in revised form 3 September 2020; Accepted 3 September 2020 ⁎ Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: natalie.munro@uconn.edu (N.D. Munro), roxanne.lebenzon@uconn.edu (R. Lebenzon), agopher@tauex.tau.ac.il (A. Gopher), nigel.goring-morris@mail.huji.ac.il (A.N. Goring-Morris). Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 33 (2020) 102571 2352-409X/ © 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. T