Posted on 03/24/2018 8:16:20 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
The study, which focused on the ancient settlements of Shivta and Sa'adon, found archaeological evidence that the Byzantines in the Negev did not raise their pigeons for food, but to fertilize the dry loess soil and making it more suitable for intensive agriculture.
Loess is made up of fragment of geological detritus, formed by the accumulation of wind-blown dust. But despite its lowly origins, loess tends to develop into very rich soils. Under appropriate climatic conditions, it forms some of the most agriculturally productive terrain in the world.
"The pigeon droppings are rich in phosphorus, potassium and nitrogen, which are essential for agriculture and lacking in the loess soil of the Negev," the researchers noted, adding that "the fact that the pigeon bones we found are much smaller than pigeons grown for meat, along with the nesting materials discovered in the trenches and the location of these within the agricultural fields, indicate that the pigeons were grown without significant human intervention, with people mainly providing them with protection."
In recent years, a large-scale study has been conducted in the Byzantine Negev communities, led by Prof. Guy Bar-Oz of the University of Haifa, in an attempt to understand, among other things, how the Byzantines managed to maintain an extensive farming system in the desert about 1,500 years ago, and what caused these thriving communities to be abandoned overnight.
In a study published several months ago, the research group presented significant archaeological evidence of the extent of agriculture in the Negev at the time, using the bones of a rodent (Marion), which lives only in more humid environments and is not found in desert.
(Excerpt) Read more at jewishpress.com ...
:^)
Also the diverting of water from the Jordan River, which eventually led to the six-day war. The Negev that I’ve seen is rich pasture land.
But if the birds were being fed the same seed as they were planting in the fields then you get much better results.
Pigeon poop, fertilizer’s secret weapon.
The Egyptian remilitarization of the Sinai and joint Saudi-Egyptian blocking of the Aqaba sealane (Israel had already illegally been blocked from use of the Suez Canal) also were factors in 1967.
Whoops.
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