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TEAM
PROF. GUY BAR-OZ
Is a professor of archaeology at the University of Haifa. His research concentrates on the cultural and biological heritage of populations in marginal environments in the ancient Levant and is enabled by applying novel multidisciplinary methods for reconstructing in high resolution the culture and environmental landscape of past societies.
DR. JOSHUA SCHMIDT
Is a culture anthropologist with an expertise in peripheral communities, heritage tourism and the geographies of Negev viticulture. A research affiliate in the Zinman Institute of Archaeology at the University of Haifa, Israel, Schmidt is currently compiling an ampelography of native grapes from the Holy Land.
DR. MEIRAV MEIRI
Meirav Meiri is an ancient DNA specialist at the Steinhardt Museum of Natural History at Tel Aviv University. She completed her PhD from Royal Holloway, University of London, UK, where she focused on phylogeographic inference using modern and ancient DNA of Holarctic red deer and moose. Her research interests encompass utilizing ancient DNA analysis to explore evolutionary relationships of species, population movements, and the impact of environmental changes and human interference on the fauna and flora in the southern Levant over time. Within the context of the BOSTAN TREE project Meirav is conducting paleogenetic analysis of biological materials recovered from relic tree cultivars located in the field.
PROF. GIDEON AVNI
Gideon Avni is the Chief Archaeologist for the Israel Antiquities Authority and Professor of Archaeology at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. His academic interests focus on various aspects of Classical, Late Antique, and Islamic archaeology, the archaeology of Jerusalem and its hinterlands, nomads and sedentary societies in the desert areas of the Near East, Mediterranean connectivity in Late Antiquity and Early Islamic times, the diffusion and movement of technologies, plant species, and people across Eurasia, and environmental archaeology.
PROF. YUVAL BEN-BASSAT
Prof. Yuval Ben-Bassat is a Professor at the Department of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies at the University of Haifa where he teaches Ottoman and Turkish history since 2007. Ben-Bassat received his Ph.D. from the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at the University of Chicago (2007). His research focuses on Ottoman petitions, Ottoman maps, Greater Syria in the 19th century, the rural population of Palestine, the early Jewish-Arab conflict, Gaza during the late Ottoman period, and the Young Turk Revolution of 1908.
Academia (https://haifa.academia.edu/YuvalBenBassat)
DR. ROI PORAT
Dr. Roi Porat holds a PHD in Archaeology from The Hebrew University of Jerusalem that pertains to cultivar diversity in the classical periods. His research focuses on the Herodian Era and the period of Jewish revolt against the Romans in Judea (1-2 CE) that occurred in various locations of the Judean Desert. With in the context of the BOSTAN TREE project, Porat is currently pursuing a Post-doc at the University of Haifa. A specialist in field surveys and interdisciplinary spatial studies, Porat is conducting surveys and in-field documentation in areas where ancient agricultural systems once flourished throughout Israel.
DR. ROY GALILI
Dr. Roy Galili is a farmer from Moshav Idan in the Arava desert and holds a PhD in Archaeology from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. Galili’s main fields of research center on the relationship between desert borne cultures and those from fertile areas, with a particular focus on desert based agricultural traditions and proto-globalization process. Within the context of the BOSTAN TREE project, Dr. Galili is studying date trees as living archaeological artifacts and the interrelationships between date trees and humans in the deserts of the southern Levant.
DR. ELI ASHKENAZI
Eli Ashkenazi is a lecturer at the Department of Geography, Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, Oranim College and the School of Archaeology and Maritime Cultures, University of Haifa, Israel. His research topics focus on the relationship between the environment and human activities with the aim of obtaining an improved understanding of how geology, topography, soils, water and human activity are fused together across epochs of varying historical periods. The focal point of my research relates to soil, water, flora and agriculture amid desert environments. I am particularly interested in current adaptations of obsolete technologies of the earlier residents of the Negev desert and the Sinai Peninsula whose ideas may have practical use today. The study of human influence and the design of local environments that are consistent and in agreement with landscape architecture connects with the BOSTAN TREE project, particularly as we seek to discover the living symbiosis between heritage trees and human activity in arid Mediterranean landscapes.
DR. ELIEZER BAUMGARTEN
Dr. Eliezer Baumgarten is the manager of the 'eLijah-Lab' for Digital Humanities at the University of Haifa, that focuses on quantitative aspects of knowledge in the humanities and social sciences. In the context of the BOSTAN-TREE project, he assists in the digital aspects of data collection modeling, and in later stages, will apply his expertise to its analysis and presentation.
DR. INNA KIZHNER
Dr. Inna Kizhner is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Haifa. She studies past societies, looking at the interaction of data coming from archaeological reports and museum databases. Her research focuses on how data and the contexts of their production influence our perception of cultural heritage and cultural landscapes. Her research for the BOSTAN-TREE project frames the project within her research on dryland regions in the first millennium CE. The objective of this research is to compare long-term successes in managing agriculture in dryland areas in several countries. Inna’s study focuses on the application of interdisciplinary approaches to understanding the structure, variability and circumstances shaping cultural landscapes and farming practices in dryland areas, with her specific case study being vineyards in Central Asia.
DR. ERNESTO TESTÉ
Ernesto Testé is a postdoc student at Haifa University and the Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (France). His research focuses on unraveling the enigma of date palm cultivation in the Negev desert based on a combination of morphological and genomic tools.
MR. ASSAF BASHAN
Mr. Assaf Bashan is an agronomist at the "Shalaf Agricultural Laboratory, where in 2012 he established the "Heritage Tree Project” to preserve local fruit tree varieties. Mr. Bashan collects feral cultivar tree varieties that he propagates through cuttings and grafts and grows them at his nursery-cum-laboratory. The trees are "open species" and thus available for sale to the public, with some tens of thousands already integrated into public and private landscaping and agri-orchard contexts across Israel. In 2020, Mr. Bashan extended the project by establishing a 15 dunam orchard dedicated to preserving heritage tree varieties found in Israel and the greater Mediterranean Basin. The orchard serves as a platform for studying these varieties and the fruits that they bear, including some 200 varieties of figs, 60 varieties of grapes, 30 varieties of pomegranates, 30 varieties of olives, 10 types of mulberries, 30 varieties of prickly pear and more.
MR. ADAM S. MONTEFIORE
Mr. Adam Montefiore is a wine trade veteran and winery insider, turned wine writer and author. Known as the 'English voice of Israeli wine', he is a passionate advocate of discovering and recording Israel's wine and grape heritage and history. Currently, he is writing a book about the Wine of Israel, in the context of the wine region of the Levant. Mr. Montefiore serves as a consultant for the Negev Wine Revival project. www.adammontefiore.com
PROF. GIL GAMBASH
Prof. Gil Gambash is a professor of ancient history at the University of Haifa, focusing on economic and environmental aspects of Mediterranean history in the Classical and Late-Antique periods. His research incorporates written and material evidence, aiming to identify and evaluate the stressors experienced by ancient societies, and the modes of resilience developed by them in response.