Paleopathology survey of ancient mammal bones in Israel

In this paper, we present a survey of pathologies found on post-cranial and cranial bones of mammals from eight archaeological sites in Israel. The chronology of the sites spans from the Neolithic to Biblical, Middle Ages and Ottoman periods. This study is the first of its kind to be conducted on archaeological bone assemblages from the southern Levant. The majority of pathologies were observed on cattle, sheep and goat bones. Cattle bones manifested more pathologies than sheep and goat bones. The majority of pathologies among cattle appeared on the foot bones (predominantly the first phalanges). The range of pathologies found includes joint diseases, infections, trauma and dental diseases.