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Edited by Bruce Smith, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, and approved May 10, 2010 (received for review March 15, 2010)
Abstract
Although texts and wall paintings suggest that bees were kept in the Ancient Near East for the production of precious wax and honey, archaeological evidence for beekeeping has never been found. The Biblical term “honey” commonly was interpreted as the sweet product of fruits, such as dates and figs. The recent discovery of unfired clay cylinders similar to traditional hives still used in the Near East at the site of Tel Re
ov in the Jordan valley in northern Israel suggests that a large-scale apiary was located inside the town, dating to the 10th–early 9th centuries B.C.E. This paper reports the discovery of remains of honeybee workers, drones, pupae, and larvae inside these hives. The exceptional preservation of these remains provides unequivocal identification of the clay cylinders as the most ancient beehives yet found. Morphometric analyses indicate that these bees differ from the local subspecies Apis mellifera syriaca and from all subspecies other than A. m. anatoliaca, which presently resides in parts of Turkey. This finding suggests either that the Western honeybee subspecies distribution has undergone rapid change during the last 3,000 years or that the ancient inhabitants of Tel Re
ov imported bees superior to the local bees in terms of their milder temper and improved honey yield.
Footnotes
- 1To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: bloch{at}vms.huji.ac.il.
Author contributions: G.B. and A.M. designed research; G.B., T.M.F., I.W., N.P.-C., and S.F. performed research; T.M.F. and S.F. analyzed data; and G.B. and A.M. wrote the paper.
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
This article is a PNAS Direct Submission.
This article contains supporting information online at www.pnas.org/lookup/suppl/doi:10.1073/pnas.1003265107/-/DCSupplemental.
- aDepartment of Evolution, Systematics, and Ecology, The Alexander Silberman Institute of Life Sciences, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem 91904, Israel;
- bEscola de Artes, Ciências e Humanidades, Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil;
- cInstitute of Archaeology, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem 91905, Israel; and
- dDepartment of Biological Sciences, Institut fur Bienenkunde (Polytechnische Gesellschaft), Goethe-University Frankfurt am Main, D-61440 Oberursel, Germany
Edited by Bruce Smith, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, and approved May 10, 2010 (received for review March 15, 2010)
Abstract
Although texts and wall paintings suggest that bees were kept in the Ancient Near East for the production of precious wax and honey, archaeological evidence for beekeeping has never been found. The Biblical term “honey” commonly was interpreted as the sweet product of fruits, such as dates and figs. The recent discovery of unfired clay cylinders similar to traditional hives still used in the Near East at the site of Tel Reov in the Jordan valley in northern Israel suggests that a large-scale apiary was located inside the town, dating to the 10th–early 9th centuries B.C.E. This paper reports the discovery of remains of honeybee workers, drones, pupae, and larvae inside these hives. The exceptional preservation of these remains provides unequivocal identification of the clay cylinders as the most ancient beehives yet found. Morphometric analyses indicate that these bees differ from the local subspecies Apis mellifera syriaca and from all subspecies other than A. m. anatoliaca, which presently resides in parts of Turkey. This finding suggests either that the Western honeybee subspecies distribution has undergone rapid change during the last 3,000 years or that the ancient inhabitants of Tel Reov imported bees superior to the local bees in terms of their milder temper and improved honey yield.
- Apis mellifera
- domestication
- biogeography
- climate change
- Iron Age IIA
Footnotes
- 1To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: bloch{at}vms.huji.ac.il.
Author contributions: G.B. and A.M. designed research; G.B., T.M.F., I.W., N.P.-C., and S.F. performed research; T.M.F. and S.F. analyzed data; and G.B. and A.M. wrote the paper.
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
This article is a PNAS Direct Submission.
This article contains supporting information online at www.pnas.org/lookup/suppl/doi:10.1073/pnas.1003265107/-/DCSupplemental.
Industrial apiculture in the Jordan valley during Biblical times with Anatolian honeybees
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