Filling the gap: A microscopic zooarchaeological approach to changes in butchering technology during the Early and Middle Bronze periods at Tall Zirā´a, Jordan
Bibliographic record
Abstract
The Early Bronze Age (3500–2000 bce) of the southern Levant experienced the development of bronze metal technology, but the rate and nature of its dissemination beyond the elite are unclear. In the southern Levant and elsewhere, based upon the microscopic analysis of butchering marks, it has been proposed that bronze slicing tools only begin to be used in quantities in the Middle Bronze. However, previous analyses have always lacked data sets from the Early Bronze IV/Middle Bronze I period (c. 2500–2000 bce). In this paper, we present the butchered animal bone data from the site of Tall Zirā´a (in the NW corner of Jordan) where there is a fuller chronological sequence for the Early and Middle Bronze Ages. These data provide a unique opportunity to investigate long-term changes in butchering practices in the southern Levant. The analysis demonstrates that the new (bronze) technology does not seem to be integrated into quotidian activities, such as the processing of animal carcasses, until well into the Middle Bronze Age (MB IIB). Until then, and in subsequent phases of the MB, the majority of butchering marks are made by stone implements.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.004 | 0.003 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.003 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".