Head of Laboratory
Prof. Danny Rosenberg (Ph.D. 2011, University of Haifa) is an archaeologist specializing in the archaeology of food and food-related technologies and the transition to farming and social complexity. He has served as the head of the Department of Archaeology, the University of Haifa, the head of the Laboratory for Ancient Food Processing Technologies (LAFPT), at the Zinman Institute of Archaeology, University of Haifa and the Chair of the Association for Ground Stone Tools Research (AGSTR). Hand in hand with his interest in the link between humans, their environments and technologies, Prof. Rosenberg advances multidisciplinary research of the establishment of the so-called "Mediterranean diet" in the Near East during the 6th–4th millennia cal. BC, and the link between this diet, alcohol production and the notable intensification of agricultural production. Prof. Rosenberg's research group also studied the interactions between specific environmental conditions, testable changes in foodways, material culture, and communities & social organization. As part of this endeavor, he initiated a multidisciplinary, regional research project, focusing on the Jordan Valley as its core area with the site of Tel Tsaf, with its extraordinary preservation of organic remains, as its key site. He is co-directing the micro-archaeological research at the Chalcolithic temple of Ein Gedi and the link between this site and the cave of the tressure.
drosen@research.haifa.ac.il
https://drosen21.wixsite.com/danielrosenberg
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Danny-Rosenberg
https://haifa.academia.edu/DRosenberg
Lab manager
Hadar Ahituv is a Ph.D. candidate at Bar-Ilan University and a lab manager of LAFPT. His Ph.D. dissertation focuses on starch grain analysis and reconstruction of ancient plant-based economy. The main goal is to point out the differentiation in plant consumption through the late prehistoric periods and the emergence of agriculture. Hadar created an open-access reference collection of 110 plant species starches of the eastern Mediterranean. His research is considered to be the earliest direct evidence for processing plants on percussive tools in 780 K site of BP Gesher Benot Ya’aqov.
hahituv@univ.haifa.ac.il, hadarahituv@gmail.com
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Hadar-Ahituv
https://biu.academia.edu/HadarAhituv
Ph.D. students
Ian CipinPh.D. Student
Ph.D.: Food processing during the Late Chalcolithic period of the southern Levant – A view from the study of ground stone tools
Ian Cipin is a Ph.D. candidate at LAFPT. He has a background as a senior archaeologist in commercial archaeology in the UK and was formerly the Field Director of the Jezreel Expedition in Israel. He has excavated extensively in the United Kingdom, Romania, Turkey and Israel at sites dating from prehistory to the modern era. Ian’s research interests are the later Neolithic to Early Bronze Age in the southern Levant with a focus on daily life practices and social organization from the perspective of the individual and smaller-scale dynamics within societies. His Ph.D. is focusing on food processing technologies in the Late Chalcolithic period of the southern Levant from the perspective of ground stone tools.
https://haifa.academia.edu/ICipin
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Ian-Cipin
Dr. Avichai LustigPh.D. Student
Ph.D.: The characteristics and impact of the Mediterranean diet on prehistorical and historical culinary traditions
Dr. Avichai Lustig is a member of LAFPT and his Ph.D. thesis mainly focuses on ancient diets – with emphasis on the Mediterranean diet. He has a previous Ph.D. degree in neuroscience/sensory ecology from the Sagol dept. of Neurobiology, where he researched hemispheric variations in behavior and visual traits in ectotherms (mainly chameleons). Furthermore, he holds an Applied Arts & Science Associate degree in Culinary Arts from GRCC, Michigan, USA.
Avihai’s main research goals are to distinguish contemporary as well as prehistoric (Late Neolithic to Early Chalcolithic) regional variations of the Mediterranean diet in the greater region.
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Avichai-Lustig https://independent.academia.edu/AvichaiLustig
Ph.D.: Chalcolithic meal in Tel Tsaf and its possible domesticated olives – an archaeobotanical approach
Meir Horden is a Ph.d student in Bar-Ilan University. His research is focuces on the reconstruction of ancient diet of the ancient setteleres of Tel Tsaf, using archaebotanical remains and methods.
Tamar ShoovalPh.D. Student
Ph.D.: Technological choices and food-related vessels in the late prehistory of the southern Levant
Tamar Shooval is a former M.A. student and current Ph.D. candidate at the LAFPT. Tamar is studying the development of pottery traditions and their technological changes in the Jordan Valley during the Pottery Neolithic through the Chalcolithic periods (ca. 7th–5th millennia cal BC). She is using petrography and other micro-archaeological methods in order to evaluate the pace and nature of the changes in kitchenware and serving utensils, and to document shifts in the production of artifacts related to food consumption. Doing so will provide knowledge about how people lived in the region thousands of years ago and how they chose to utilize the natural resources in their vicinity. In addition, Tamar is the Director of Ein-Dor Museum of Archaeology.
Shay ShemeshPh.D. Student
Ph.D.: Israelite and Judean food production in ground stone tools during the Iron Age II in the southern Levant – A comparative research
Shay Shemesh is a Ph.D. candidate in LAFPT. His research focuses on food processing ground stone tools in the Kingdom of Israel. He has conducted typological, contextual, and comparative analyses of ground stone tool assemblages in the region, retrieved from Israelite and Judean sites dated to the Iron Age II.
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Shay-Shemesh
https://haifa.academia.edu/%D7%A9%D7%99%D7%A9%D7%9E%D7%A9
Ph.D.: Village storage facilities from prehistory to the present day
Ran Kaftory is a Ph.D student in the LAFPT. His research mainly focuses on containers storages strategies and tecnologies within the prehistoric periods in the Levant.
M.A. students
Marva AgnonCosmetic bowls in the Iron Age of the southern Levant – Their characteristics and significance
Marva Agnon is an M.A. student conducting her research on cosmetic bowls in LAFPT. These bowls were found in the southern Levant mainly in the Iron Age II contexts, but they continue to appear in later contexts as well. Over 160 of these vessels were so far documented from sites in Israel, Jordan, and Syria. Her study focused on these vessels and aims to produce a more accurate image of their dating based on an updated chronology of the Iron Age in the southern Levant, find contexts, morphometric variations, provenance, production, distribution, use and discard patterns.
Sofiia RastorguevaThe archaeology of grinding flour in the classical world – The evidence from the Archaeology of the Near East and written sources
Sofiia Rastrogueva is an M.A. student in LAFPT. Her project is focused on Late Chalcolithic matting and fabrics, based on evidence of mat impressions in the ceramic collection of Teleilat al-Ghassul.
Boaz GersteinExperimental archaeology and the development of the Late Chalcolithic sophisticated metallurgy
Boaz Gerstein is architect and a Master student. In his research he reconstruct copper molding techniques and silo constructions from the Chalcolithic, Israel.
Julia HazimaThe origin and history of the "Rope decoration of pottery vessels": a view from Tel Tsaf
Julia Hazima is M.A. student in Archaeology in the international program, as well as, an English teacher in the elementary school at Kibbutz Gesher Haziv.
Her thesis is about untangling the rope decoration motifs in the Southern Levant via the Middle Chalcolithic Tel Tsaf test-case.
Izik LevinA GIS modeling of the location of the Wadi Raba settlements in the southern Levant
Izik Levin is an M.A. student in LAFPT and GIS analysis laboratories and a member of Tel Tsaf excavation team. he is conducting GIS analysis of the distribution patterns of Pottery Neolithic and Early Chalcolithic sites in the southern Levant.
Alumni
Postdocs
Dr. Assaf NativMaterial negotiations: The archaeology of long-term cultural processes and the Neolithic–Chalcolithic transition in the southern Levant
Dr. Vesna VučkovićMicro- and macroscopic wear patterns on 7,200 years old food processing and serving vessels and tools from Tel Tsaf, Israel: Functional and tribological aspects
Karolina HrubyPh.D.
Food complexity: Dietary habits, material culture and intra-site variability at Middle Chalcolithic Tel Tsaf, Jordan Valley, Israel
Dr. Hai AshkenaziDigital archaeology of Tel Tsaf: Data analyses and modeling of a prehistoric settlement in the Jordan Valley
Dr. Aaron GreenerStone tools for biblical coppersmiths – The unexplored stone assemblage of the Early Iron Age copper site at Timna
Ph.D.
Dr. Rivka ChasanThe emergence of the Mediterranean diet in the southern Levant – The evidence from organic residue analysis
Dr. Karolina HrubyUrbanizing food – Food processing in urban and non-urban sites in the southern Levant during the Early Bronze Age I–III
M.A
Tamar ShoovalThe pottery assemblage from the early strata of Room C70 at Tel Tsaf – Typological, morphological, and stylistic features
Daniela AlexandrovskiTrading tabular scrapers in the southern Levant: An agent-based modelling approach
Amit AharoniThe archaeology of grinding flour in the classical world – The evidence from the Archaeology of the Near East and written sources
Rivka ChasanHidden codes: Conventions in Chalcolithic basalt vessel decorations
Rachel GuthThe context and utilization of bedrock features in light of the ethnographic record in California
Erez Adama
