Footnote 2 – Searching for Israelite Origins

At Shiloh, we compared the number of sheep/goat bones to the number of cattle bones to get a ratio or percentage of sheep/goat bones, on the one hand, and cattle bones, on the other. In Middle Bronze II and Iron I the percent of sheep/goat bones was low and the percent of cattle bones was high. In the Late Bronze Age, there was a dramatic increase in sheep/goat bones, compared to the percent of cattle bones (which declined). The increase in sheep/goats in the Late Bronze Age is typical of a society changing to a pastoralist mode of existence. See Salo Hellwing and Moshe Sadeh, “Animal Remains: Preliminary Report,” in “Excavations at Shiloh 1981–1984: Preliminary Report,” ed. Israel Finkelstein, Tel Aviv 12 (1985), pp. 159–165.