Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jasrep OSL dating of pre-terraced and terraced landscape: Land transformation in Jerusalem's rural hinterland Yuval Gadot a, ⁎ , Yelena Elgart-Sharon a , Nitsan Ben-Melech a , Uri Davidovich b , Gideon Avni c , Yoav Avni d , Naomi Porat d a The Department of Archaeology and Ancient Near Eastern Cultures, Tel Aviv University, P.O.B. 39040, Tel Aviv 6997801, Israel b Department of Archaeology, The Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel c Israel Antiquities Authority, P.O.B. 586, Jerusalem 9100402, Israel d Geological Survey of Israel, 30 Malkhe Israel Street, Jerusalem 9550161, Israel ARTICLE INFO Keywords: Land use OSL dating Jerusalem Terrace construction ABSTRACT The recent success in dating dry farming terraces by Optically Stimulated Luminescence (OSL) enables scholars to evaluate for the first time construction events of terraces in their true social and economic context. Presented here are 36 new ages from two study areas located along the Upper Soreq catchment, highlands of Jerusalem, Israel. Field operations were targeted at locating Bronze Age and Iron Age agricultural activities while evaluating possible methodological limitations in using OSL for dating terraces. The results convincingly show that in the Mediterranean highland environment, soil erosion and rebuilding activities have only a mild impact on the resulting OSL dating. When combining the new ages with the ~60 ages that were published previously in the study area, it is possible to conclude that in the more favorable ecological niches of the highlands of Jerusalem terraces began ca 2400–2200 years ago. This was followed by two or three waves of wide-scale terracing, taking place mainly in the last 800 years. Finally, we were able to recognize a unique ecological niche that preserved ancient (ca 2500 years old) pre-terracing activities as it was not densely covered by later terraces. 1. Introduction The construction of bench terraces for the conduct of dry farming constitutes a major point-of-no-return in human alteration of the nat- ural environment (Bevan and Conolly, 2011). In the Mediterranean basin, terraces became one of the most defining features of the scenery, the result of prolonged formation processes. Using terrace walls for artificial creation of arable plots was a major technological innovation that has led to the complete alteration of the natural terrain. It is thus not surprising that terraces attract the attention of scholars from a range of disciplines covering geomorphological and hydrological pro- cesses (Arnaez et al., 2015), ecological modelling and human-environ- ment interplay (Bevan et al., 2013; Tarolli et al., 2014), as well as human subsistence strategies and social history (Gibson, 2003; Wilkinson, 2003). For the archaeologist, terrace construction mirrors socio-economic processes related to organization of rural labor, eco- nomic decision-making and, possibly, carrying capacities and demo- graphic trends (Gadot et al., 2016a). An in-depth study of ancient terraces within their true social context is dependent however on reliable dating, an aim that is notoriously difficult to achieve. Archaeology depends on stratigraphy and on in situ dateable material in order to date layers and features. When dealing with landscape features such as terraces, there are major difficulties regarding both absolute and relative dating, since the palimpsest nature of human exploitation of the landscape limits the use of these basic dating tools (Roberts and Jacobs, 1992: 347–348; Wilkinson, 2003). Consequently, scholars must search for alternative dating methods. Recent scholarship has raised the option of using Optically Stimulated Luminescence (OSL) for dating terrace construction (Davidovich et al., 2012; Kinnaird et al., 2017). This dating method identifies the last time the soil was exposed to light and so can be utilized for dating soil movement, whether natural or anthropogenic. In recent years OSL has been applied for dating a range of man-made features in the landscape (Fuch and Wagner, 2005; Walsh, 2014: 93; Ackermann et al., 2014; Davidovich et al., 2014; Dunseth et al., 2017; Kinnaird et al., 2017). The aims of this study are twofold: First to consolidate the value of https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jasrep.2018.08.036 Received 1 May 2018; Received in revised form 28 July 2018; Accepted 13 August 2018 ⁎ Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: ygadot@gmail.com (Y. Gadot), yelenael@mail.tau.ac.il (Y. Elgart-Sharon), uri.davidovich@mail.huji.ac.ill (U. Davidovich), gideon@israntique.org.il (G. Avni), yavni@gsi.gov.il (Y. Avni), naomi.porat@gsi.gov.il (N. Porat). Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 21 (2018) 575–583 2352-409X/ © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. T