Some 2,900 years ago, the Upper Galilee region in modern-day northern Israel was in upheaval, caught between the warring kingdoms of Israel and Aram.

Yet, the shepherds of Tel Hazor continued to herd their sheep and goats on rolling hills and green pastures as distant as the Golan Heights, apparently undisturbed by the conflict, a new study published in the prestigious journal PLOS ONE last week has suggested.

The authors, most of whom are affiliated with the University of Haifa, performed isotope analysis on sheep and goat teeth dating to the eighth to 10th centuries BCE found at the site during decades of excavations by the Hebrew University. They found no change in the areas where the animals grazed, despite evolving geopolitical scenarios.

According to the study, this suggests that the line between Israel and Aram never turned into a hard, impenetrable border and did not affect the simple people and communities living in the area.

“Studies on the Iron Age [1200-586 BCE] usually ask the questions about the top of society, the leaders, the army, the kingdoms; [researchers] don’t usually look at the common people,” said senior lecturer Shlomit Bechar of the University of Haifa, one of the authors of the PLOS ONE paper. “We wanted to see how the wars between Israel and Aram affected common people, and we thought we could do so by examining their sheep and goats.”

Hazor has been excavated since the 1950s, when the first expedition was led by legendary Israeli archaeologist Yigael Yadin. Since the end of the 1990s, archaeologists have been returning to the site to continue exploring it almost every year. Bechar has been excavating there since 2007.

A prominent biblical  site

Hazor features prominently in the Hebrew Bible.

“Joshua then turned back and captured Hazor and put its king to the sword —Hazor was formerly the head of all those kingdoms,” reads the book of Joshua (11:10; translation JPS).

The site was a prominent Canaanite city in the second millennium BCE until it was completely destroyed around 1250 BCE.

“We know when and how, but we do not know by whom or why,” Bechar noted, saying that most scholars do not believe the documented archaeological destruction was connected to the biblical narrative of Joshua’s conquest of the land, as the chronology does not match.

A small settlement was rebuilt in Hazor around 1100 BCE.

In the 10th century, Hazor expanded again, with new fortifications built and houses probably associated with the elites. The remains also show that, at that point, the settlement was Israelite.

“The material culture becomes very much like what you find in the rest of the country,” Bechar said

In the ninth century, the city doubled its size, according to the archaeologist, featuring public buildings, storage houses, a citadel, and a very impressive fortification system. The same period witnessed the wars between Israel and Aram.

The conflict is mentioned in both the Bible and the Tel Dan Stele, a ninth-century BCE stone fragment that features the earliest archaeological mention of the House of David, in the context of celebrating the victories of Aramean King Hazael.

The first book of Kings describes a war between the kingdoms of Judah and Israel, where King Asa of Judah asked Aramean King Ben-Hadad for help against King Baasha of Israel.

“Ben-Hadad responded to King Asa’s request; he sent his army officers against the towns of Israel and captured Ijon, Dan, Abel-beth-maacah and all Chinneroth, as well as all the land of Naphtali,” reads I Kings 15:20 (translation JPS), referring to the portion of the land Israel assigned to the Israelite tribe of Naphtali, where Hazor stood.

The stele speaks about Aramean king Hazael conquering the area.

In the eighth century BCE, the conflict between Aram and Israel subsided.

Following the isotopes’ trail

The authors hypothesized that if the wars had affected the daily lives of the shepherds of Hazor, it would have changed the grazing patterns of their herds, as it would be difficult for them to reach the same areas whose control was shifting between Israel and Aram.

On the contrary, consistent grazing patterns across the centuries would likely mean that simple people continued to have access to the same pastures, regardless of shifts in political or military control over them.

Grazing patterns were assessed through isotopic analysis, which is conducted on teeth (or bones) to investigate strontium, carbon, and oxygen isotopes. The three types of isotopes are found in soil, vegetation, and water. Animals and humans absorb these elements through their diet, and they are encapsulated in their teeth or bones, providing scientists with a “fingerprint” of the locations where they lived.

The authors of the study examined how the isotopes reflected the different environments in the Hula Valley, where Hazor stands, and found no significant changes over the centuries. Herds continued to graze around the settlement and in more distant areas, such as the Golan Heights, even during times of conflict, suggesting the absence of a hard border between the rival polities.

“The common people, these herders, were able to go around contested areas between Israel and Aram without any problem,” Bechar said.

The archaeologist explained that the animals’ teeth were dated based on the archaeological context in which they were found.

“To this date, there is no radiocarbon dating from Hazor in the Iron Age,” she said.

Asked whether archaeological evidence also provides insights into how the conflict between Israel and Aram, as described in written sources, affected the elites of Hazor, Bechar said that “I don’t know of anything that shows that their lives changed, but as we say that a picture is worth 1,000 words, a written source is worth 1,000 sherds.”

“When you have the actual words of people who lived during this time, you don’t need to imagine what was going on,” she added, referring to the Tel Dan Stele. “The text is the strongest evidence.”

While this specific study is concluded, Bechar said that there are several ongoing research projects focusing on findings from Hazor.

The archaeologist plans to return to the site to dig in the summer to excavate.

“We have not been able to do so since the summer of 2023 because of the war,” she said, referring to the conflict sparked by the bloody Hamas onslaught against Israel in October 2023. “We will see if this year the situation will allow us to go back.”

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