The possible use of acorns in past economies of the Southern Levant: A staple food or a negligible food source?

Trees yielding hard-shell fruits were part of the former landscape of the Southern Levant. Among these, oaks were one of the most prominent features of the Mediterranean woodlands, covering large parts of the landscape. Nevertheless, their possible importance as a food source in past economies of the Southern Levant has been underestimated in comparison to other plant resources. Furthermore, the appearance of stone pounding and grinding tools (frequently mentioned in ethnographic accounts as acorn processing tools) in the Epipalaeolithic and the Early Neolithic has been mostly seen as associated with cereal processing and the transition to agriculture based economies. This paper summarizes past work on oak and acorns and explores their role in the past economies of the Southern Levant. It suggests that processing methods and the spatial location of the preparation of acorns for consumption might explain why the contribution of this widespread, high-energy nutritional resource has been underestimated in attempts to reconstruct past subsistence economies.