Subsistence Patterns

Subsistence Patterns. Rainfall in Judah, and the lifestyle patterns based upon it, was considerably more marginal than in Israel to the north. For this reason, the population of Judah could never be as great as that of its northern neighbor. It is interesting that the greatest population seems to have been located in the Shephelah where the greatest water supply was available. The highlands with their narrow valleys were good for fruits, vegetables, and small crops of grain, while the Shephelah with its wider valleys could produce considerably more food. Sites such as Beth Shemesh, Beit Mirsim, and Gibeon (this last site in the highlands) illustrate the agricultural potential of the area with their oil and wine installations. In the rainshadow of the eastern highlands, the primary lifestyle of the Judean Desert must have been pastoralism, much as it was in most periods. But the real point of interest for the subsistence patterns of Judah is why the northern Negev prospered as never before. Though settlement had already begun in Iron IIA as isolated fortresses, moderately sized walled towns now sprouted up (but see Holladay 1994 for observations about how many of them could have been Iron IIA). Defensive strategies or demographic pressures may have compelled settlement here, but the fact that it was done successfully indicates the adaptation of subsistence strategies—including both agriculture as well as pastoralism—to marginal desert zones. This must mean the Negev residents constructed dams and embankments in the wadis to catch runoff and retain it for fields, dug wells to tap the water table, and hewed cisterns to store runoff.
Herr, Larry G. “The Iron Age II Period: Emerging Nations.” Biblical Archaeologist: Volume 60 1-4 2001 : 143. Print.