Figure 6 from Itamar Taxel & Joel Roskin (2025) showing a cross-section through a plot and its flanking/supporting berms.
Plants require several factors to enable them to grow, develop, and complete their life cycle (HF Wilkins, 1988 ; Phryne Fisher; Ann Marie VanDerZanden). One of these is a suitable substrate that provides a source of water and nutrients, and anchorage for roots so that they can support the above-ground parts of the plant. In that regard, out of all the wide variety of rooting media available on the planet, sand is one of the least suitable for supporting plant growth (Lois Berg Stack). Why?
Because sand consists of large particles – up to 2 mm in diameter (Brian Needelman, 2013) – that not only hold little water (Rick Schoellhorn), but also drain very freely – so any water that it contains is soon lost. Chemically, the main component of sand is quartz (silicon dioxide, SiO2), which provides little by way of nutrients from its constituent chemicals of silicon and oxygen*. Furthermore, sand’s nutrient-retaining ability is very low (Tiffanee Boone; Rick Schoellhorn). Combine those properties with a geographical region with little rainfall, and you’ll think you’ve been dealt a rather poor hand if this is the ‘soil’ you have on your doorstep.
However, if you have hungry people to feed, you have two main options. You either leave and try and find somewhere more amenable to agriculture – a long shot that may involve a very long trek in the – probably rather slim – hope of finding better conditions elsewhere, and possibly with a high mortality rate during the journey. Or, you do what the creative inhabitants of the Mediterranean coastal town of Caesarea** did over 1000 years ago***, which was essentially to ‘put up or shut up‘, and get on with it.
And, get on with it they evidently did, because archaeologists have unearthed what they believe is evidence of “the earliest known agriculture in sand ” (Itamar Taxel & Joel Roskin, 2025). Termed a ‘plot-and-berm agrosystem‘ (Itamar Taxel et al., 2018), the area consists of hundreds (Melanie Lidman) of small-area plots (Itamar Taxel & Joel Roskin, 2025). Each plot is surrounded by an approx. 5 m tall mound of banked-up sandy soil (Adam Ostrowski et al., 2022) that is known as a ‘berm’ (Amy Grant).
Importantly, although the plots are essentially just depressions in the sand, the yellow-coloured sandy bed of the plot is covered by a dark grey material (Itamar Taxel & Joel Roskin, 2025). This darker material has been interpreted as an anthrosol, “a type of soil that has been formed or heavily modified due to long-term human activity” (Manuel Arroyo-Kalin, 2014). This soil-based anthrosol is inferred to have been enriched with “charcoal fragments, ash, small pottery sherds and organic refuse [e.g., “burnt crop-making leftovers and other refuse, probably from city dumps” (Christa Lesté-Lasserre)]” (Itamar Taxel & Joel Roskin, 2025). This enrichment was presumably an attempt to enhance soil productivity (Adam Ostrowski et al., 2022).
In this way an otherwise barren area of sand has been converted to an agriculturally-productive one. [Ed. – Enriching otherwise sandy soil with organic matter or fertiliser (Tiffanee Boone; Rick Schoellhorn) is one of the best ways that it can be made more productive for plants [and improve its ability to retain water (Christine Anne Clarke)]. Whilst nowadays we might turn to the internet to discover this information, it’s likely the inhabitants of Caesarea reached much the same solution to their sandy soil problem – by practical, hands-on trial-and-error – all those hundreds of years ago.]
And there’s even more agricultural ingenuity to the plot-and-berm system. Excavating the plot below ground level not only protects whatever is grown in the plots from wind, it also brings the base of the plot much closer to the level of the groundwater in the region (Itamar Taxel et al., 2018), which allows better irrigation of any crops. In this way, “Plot-and-Berm agroecosystems agriculturally utilized marginal lands in a sophisticated fashion, where a high-water table existed within loose, aeolian sand sheets, in semi-arid to Mediterranean climates” (Adam Ostrowski et al., 2022).
Similar dark material to the plot’s anthrosol is found within the berms where it is inferred to provide structure and support to the mound. Although presumably intended to help protect whatever was being grown in the plots, this reinforcement**** has the added bonus of helping to preserve “the whole agroecosystem from aeolian and fluvial erosion until modern times” (Adam Ostrowski et al., 2022) permitting its present-day excavation and in-depth examination.
Although no organic remains that might identify what plants were grown in the plots have been found (Melanie Lidman), it is inferred that “These anthropogenic units were productive/healthy enough to support the cultivation of crops in the plots … specifically vegetables and/or legumes that could have been grown there year-round, perhaps with a certain seasonality regarding specific crops” (Itamar Taxel & Joel Roskin, 2025).
Furthermore, the agriculture believed to have been supported by the plot-and-berm system is hypothesised to be “rain-based in the winter and supported by irrigation from the shallow and adjacent groundwater during the summer and dry spells” (Itamar Taxel & Joel Roskin, 2025). So, despite its seemingly inhospitable sandy wasteland nature, this area around Caesarea appears to have been agriculturally exploited – probably! – to – presumably – very good effect by its inhabitants hundreds of years ago. [Ed. – you will notice that there is rather a lot of inference, speculation, hypothesis, and conjecture about the actual use to which the plots were put. But that is the nature of archaeology in the absence of contemporaneous written records of the use(s) of the plots.]
Who were these innovative ‘sand-farmers’? Plot-and-berm agroactivity at the site at Caesarea***** has been dated to a period “not before the tenth century, perhaps only during its later half. Apparently, the agroecosystem continued to function throughout the eleventh and probably until the early twelfth century” (Itamar Taxel & Joel Roskin, 2025). Which period “reflects late Abbasid and Fatimid influence on the region” (Lotem Robins et al., 2025) during the Early Islamic occupation of the area.
Although the plot-and-berm agroecosystem was abandoned before the middle of the 12th century, “perhaps due to geopolitical and demographic changes in the region following the Crusader occupation” (Itamar Taxel & Joel Roskin, 2025), it is arguably another example of the contribution of Islamic agricultural ingenuity that has been variously called the Islamic agricultural revolution (Michael Decker, 2009), Arab agricultural revolution, Muslim farming revolution (Salah Zaimeche, and Islamic green revolution (Helena Kirchner et al., 2023).
However, and as fascinating as it is to have identified 1000-year old farming practices in the Middle-East, does this knowledge have any relevance to agriculture in the 21st century? Yes. As stated at the very beginning of their review of the plot-and-berm sites, “The subject of ancient water-harvesting and agricultural systems in arid and marginal zones has intrigued generations of archaeologists, agronomists, and earth scientists, and there is a growing interest in these systems … One of the reasons driving the study of ancient water harvesting is the effect of modern climate change and anthropogenic activity on the world’s dwindling water resources, and the degrading quality and often over-exploited global reserves of suitable soil for agriculture” (Itamar Taxel & Joel Roskin, 2025). Specifically, “The plots and berms mark human adaptation to the challenges of aeolian erosion and groundwater availability, making it a unique system that is independent of irrigation, channels, canals, or overland and fluvial flow” (Itamar Taxel et al., 2018). In other words, “the Caesarea farm could provide useful information about growing in hot, sandy climates for modern farmers dealing with desertification (Keegan Carvalho)” (Melanie Lidman).
Present understanding of a past agricultural system may therefore help humanity deal with future issues of restricted freshwater availability (Fiona Harvey; Simge Eva Dogan; Chunyang He et al., 2021). Which makes this on-going archaeological work of great importance, and relevance, to us all******.
For more on this story see Christa Lesté-Lasserre, here, Adam Eliyahu, Mark Milligan, and Melanie Lidman.
* Although plants need oxygen (Ilana Goldowitz Jimenez), that is primarily obtained obtained directly from the atmosphere for above-ground parts, or from air-containing pores in the soil (Lois Berg Stack]) for roots and underground plant parts, they are unable to extract it directly from sand itself. And, although silicon is not an essential nutrient for plants generally (Marie Luyckx et al., 2017; Tanja Folnović [https://www.agrivi.com/blog/benefits-of-silicon-on-plant-growth/]; Min Wang et al., 2021), it may improve the growth of some plants (Marie Luyckx et al., 2017; Tanja Folnović) or improve their performance in particular circumstances (Min Wang et al., 2021) (and maybe play a part in tomato plants thwarting South American tomato pinworm (Sarah Schwartz)). However, the silicon in silicon dioxide can’t be exploited directly by plants (Joseph Heckman).
** I now know that there are several different towns called Caesarea in the area known as The Levant. The Caesarea (with the plot-and-berm agrosystem of relevance to this post) is on the coast between Haifa and Jaffa [see Fig. 1 in Itamar Taxel & Joel Roskin, 2025], and was formerly known as Caesarea Maritima (Mark Milligan) (which is also known as Caesarea Palaestinae).
Another Levantine Caesarea of note in connection with this post is the inland town Caesarea Philippi (Robert Alexander Stewart Macalister, Agnes Choi) (which is nowadays better known as Banias (Marek Dospěl). There, rather than develop an enriched-sand agricultural system suited to the area as at Caesarea Maritima, the inhabitants of Caesarea Philippi had a different approach to crop improvement, “Children would be thrown alive into the entrance to the cave as a sacrifice to the god of Pan, believing this would appease the gods and bring fertility to their crops”.
*** This situation reminds me of the saying “When life gives you lemons, make lemonade” (Kate Woodford). [Ed. – Although, anybody who has seen the scene in the British comedy TV series The Detectorists (Mark Braxton) when members of the Danebury Metal Detecting Club try to consume Sheila’s home-made lemonade (James Loax) will know, not all lemonades are created equal…]. Although there is no suggestion that lemon trees were supported in the plot-and-berm agrosystems considered in this post, it is hypothesised that “vegetables, melons, legumes and herbs, perhaps with the addition of grapes and cotton” may have been grown there (Itamar Taxel & Joel Roskin, 2025).
**** Because that berm-located material is deemed not to be a crop-growing soil it is termed an anthrosediment (Manuel Arroyo-Kalin, 2014; Adam Ostrowski et al., 2022) rather than an anthrosol, which name is reserved for the same material found within the plot.]
***** Caesarea isn’t the only site where the plot-and-berm agrosystem has been discovered. This agricultural phenomenon has been found at two other sites along the Mediterranean coast of what is now Israel, although the system at Caesarea is the most thoroughly excavated and studied (Itamar Taxel & Joel Roskin, 2025). Conjuring-up images of ‘making the coastal desert sands bloom’, the area has been dubbed the “Caesarea Gardens” (Adam Eliyahu Berkowitz, Melanie Lidman).
****** In the absence of definitive proof of what may have been grown in the plots, “One idea is that there was a unique type of crop that could be grown in this type of environment, but we are looking in Islamic and Arabic texts, and so far we have found nothing,” said Joel Roskin [a geomorphologist and landscape archaeologist at Israel’s Bar Ilan University] who is heavily involved in study of the plot-and-berm agrosystem] (quoted in the article by Melanie Lidman). If such a crop could be identified it may be something whose agricultural potential for those otherwise difficult-to-farm lands could be reintroduced to maximise productivity of such regions to help feed the planet’s growing population.
REFERENCES
Manuel Arroyo-Kalin, 2014. Anthropogenic sediments and soils: Geoarchaeology, pp. 279-284. In: C Smith (ed) Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology. Springer, New York, NY; https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-0465-2_856
Michael Decker, 2009. Plants and progress: Rethinking the Islamic agricultural revolution. Journal of World History 20(2): 187–206; http://www.jstor.org/stable/40542757
Chunyang He et al., 2021. Future global urban water scarcity and potential solutions. Nat Commun 12: 4667; https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-25026-3
Marie Luyckx et al., 2017. Silicon and plants: Current knowledge and technological perspectives. Front. Plant Sci. 8: 411; doi: 10.3389/fpls.2017.00411
Brian A Needelman, 2013. What are soils? Nature Education Knowledge 4(3): 2.
Adam Ostrowski et al., 2022. Role of anthrosols and anthrosediments in the early Islamic plot-and-berm agroecosystem by ancient Caesarea. EGU General Assembly 2022, Vienna, Austria, 23–27 May 2022, EGU22-9973, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu22-9973, 2022
Lotem Robins et al., 2025. Punctuated landscape evolution of the Caesarea (Israel) plot-and-berm agroecosystem in coastal sand inferred from port-OSL and OSL chronologies. Catena 250: Article 108735; https://doi.org/10.1016/j.catena.2025.108735
Itamar Taxel et al., 2018. An early Islamic inter-settlement agroecosystem in the coastal sand of the Yavneh dunefield, Israel. Journal of Field Archaeology 43(7): 551-569; doi: 10.1080/00934690.2018.1522189
Itamar Taxel & Joel Roskin, 2025. Early Islamic groundwater-harvesting plot-and-berm agroecosystems along the southeastern Mediterranean coast: The earliest known agriculture in sand. Environmental Archaeology 1–20; https://doi.org/10.1080/14614103.2025.2452090
Min Wang et al., 2021. Functions of silicon in plant drought stress responses. Hortic Res 8: 254; https://doi.org/10.1038/s41438-021-00681-1
HF Wilkins, 1988. Five factors of plant growth. Retrieved from the University Digital Conservancy; https://hdl.handle.net/11299/202594
Plant Cuttings 
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