Cultural, Socio-economic and Environmental Influences on Health Status of Chalcolithic Populations in the Northern Negev

Reconstructions of material culture, subsistence base and lifestyle, show marked dissimilarities between two Late Chalcolithic site clusters from the Northern Negev; one cluster along the Beersheva stream and the second cluster along the Besor-Grar drainage. In this paper we have examined the extent to which these factors affected the health status of human populations from both clusters, as expressed in their age at death and skeletal and dental pathology. We found marked differences in health status between the clusters that may relate to a combination of dietary and lifestyle differences between them, with the Besor-Grar cluster (e.g. the site of Gilat) exhibiting more deleterious health status than the Beersheva cluster (e.g. the site of Shiqmim). However, for Chalcolithic communities in the Southern Levant as a whole, life expectancy was short and preceded by chronic ill-health typical of populations with poor nutrition and a high prevalence of infectious diseases, many that were probably zoonotic in origin.