Reconceptualizing the Early Bronze Age Southern Levant without Cities: Local Histories and Walled Communities of EB II–III Society
Issue: Vol 28 No. 1 (2015)
Journal: Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology
Subject Areas: Ancient History Archaeology
Abstract:
Traditionally, the Early Bronze Age (EBA) has been described as the first urban society in the southern Levant. In comparison to many other regions of the world, such as ancient Mesoamerica, North America, Europe, East Asia, and Mesopotamia, EBA society does not pass the ‘urban litmus test’. In this paper I argue that ultimately the EBA evidence does not fit standard definitions of urbanism because it lacks three key elements: scale of differentiation, increased localized diversity and coherence of identity, and a rural and urban dichotomy in lifeways. Instead, I suggest that we need to analyze and reconstruct EBA society in terms of its own regional, economic, political, and social context, and work to build new ways of understanding EBA society. From the standpoint of an anthropological archaeologist, I believe that people in the EBA were working towards a societal project, a cultural endeavor, that involved population aggregation, the founding of fortified communities, intensification of agricultural and pastoral production, innovative water management and irrigation technologies, and increasingly regionalized expression of EBA (material) culture—but that this project was not an urbanizing cultural transformation. I focus on mortuary practices at two major, well-published EBA walled communities, Jericho and Bab adh-Dhra`, in order to demonstrate the lack of coherence, degree of diverse material practices, and absence of pronounced differentiation in EBA society.
Author: Meredith S. Chesson
References :
Adams, R. McC. 2012 Ancient Mesopotamian urbanism and blurred disciplinary boundaries. Annual Review of Anthropology 41: 1-20. http://dx.doi.org/10.1146/annurev-anthro-092611-145701
Bentley, G.R., and V.J. Perry 2008 Dental analyses of the Bab adh-Dhra` human remains. In D.J. Ortner and B. Fröhlich (eds.), The Early Bronze Age I Tombs and Burials of Bab edh-Dhra’, Jordan. Reports of the Expedition to the Dead Sea Plain 3: 281-96. Lanham, Maryland: Altamira Press.
Birch, J. (ed.) 2013 From Prehistoric Villages to Cities: Settlement Aggregation and Community Transformation. London: Routledge.
Braemer, F. 2011 Badia and Maamoura, the Jawlan/Hawran regions during the Bronze Age: landscapes and hypothetical territories. Syria 88: 31-46.
Braemer, F., B .Geyer, C. Castel and M. Abdulkarim 2010 Conquest of new lands and water systems in the western Fertile Crescent (central and southern Syria). Water History 2: 91-114. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s12685-010-0029-9
Burke, A. 2008 ‘Walled Up to Heaven’: The Evolution of Middle Bronze Age Fortification Strategies in the Levant. Winona Lake, Indiana: Eisenbrauns.
Chesson, M.S. 1999 Libraries of the dead: Early Bronze Age charnel houses and social identity at urban Bab edh-Dhra’, Jordan. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 18: 137-64. http://dx.doi.org/10.1006/jaar.1998.0330
Chesson, M.S. 2001 Embodied memories of place and people: death and society in an early urban community. In M.S. Chesson (ed.), Social Memory, Identity and Death: Ethnographic and Archaeological Perspectives on Mortuary Rituals. American Anthropological Association, Archaeological Paper 10: 100-13. Arlington, Virginia: American Anthropological Association. http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/ap3a.2001.10.1.100
Chesson, M.S. 2007 House, town, field, and wadi: economic, political and social landscapes in Early Bronze Age walled communities of the southern Levant. In R.A. Beck (ed.), The Durable House: House Society Models in Archaeology. Center for Archaeological Investigations, Occasional Paper 35: 317-43. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press.
Chesson, M.S., and N. Goodale 2014 Population aggregation, residential storage and socioeconomic inequality at Early Bronze Age Numayra, Jordan. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 35: 117-34. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jaa.2014.02.002
Chesson, M.S., and G. Philip 2003 Tales of the city? ‘Urbanism’ in the Early Bronze Age Levant from Mediterranean and Levantine perspectives. Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology 16: 3-16. http://dx.doi.org/10.1558/jmea.v16i1.3
Chesson, M.S., and G. Philip 2007 House, town, field, and wadi: economic, political and social landscapes in Early Bronze Age walled communities of the southern Levant, In R.A. Beck Jr. (ed.), The Durable House: House Society Models in Archaeology. Center for Archaeological Investigations, Occasional Paper 35: 317-43. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University.
Childe, V.G. 1950 The urban revolution. Town Planning Review 21: 3-17.
Cohen, S.L. 2009 Continuities and discontinuities: a re-examination of the Intermediate Bronze Age—Middle Bronze Age Transition. Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 354: 1-13.
Cooper, L. 2006 Early Urbanism on the Syrian Euphrates. Abingdon, UK: Routledge. http://dx.doi.org/10.4324/9780203306727
Cowgill, G.L. 2004 Origins and development of urbanism: archaeological perspectives. Annual Review of Anthropology 33: 525-49. http://dx.doi.org/10.1146/annurev.anthro.32.061002.093248
de Miroschedji, P. 2009 Rise and collapse in the southern Levant in the Early Bronze Age. Scienze dell-Antichita`: Storia Archeologica Antroplogia 15: 101-29.
Douglas, K. 2007 Befestigung der Unterstadt von Khirbet ez-Zeraqon im Rahmen der frühbronzezeitlichen Fortifikationen in Palästina: Deutsch-jordanische Ausgrabungen in Khirbet ez-Zeraqon 1984-1994. Endberichte III/1. Abandlungen des Deutschen Palästina-Vereins 27/3. Wiesbaden, Germany: Harrassowitz.
Esse, D.L. 1989 Secondary state formation and collapse in Early Bronze Age Palestine. In P. de Miroschedji (ed.), L’urbanisation de la Palestine a l’age du Bronz ancien. British Archaeological Reports, International Series 527: 81-86. Oxford: British Archaeological Reports.
Fletcher, R. 2012 Low-density, agrarian-based urbanism: scale, power, and ecology. In M.E. Smith (ed.), The Comparative Archaeology of Complex Societies, 285-320. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Forbes, H. 2007 Meaning and Identity in a Greek Landscape. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Forbes, H.A., and L. Foxhall 1995 Ethnoarchaeology and storage in the ancient Mediterranean: beyond risk and survival. In J. Wilkins, D. Harvey and M. Dobson (eds), Food in Antiquity, 69-86. Exeter: University of Exeter Press.
Genz, H. 2002 Die frühbronzezeitliche Keramik von Hirbet ez-Zeraqon, Nordjordanien. Mit Studien zur Chronologie und funktionalen Deutung frühbronzezeitlicher Keramik in der südlichen Levante. Deutsch-jordanische Ausgrabungen in Hirbet ez-Zeraqon 1984-1994. Endberichte Band V. Abhandlungen des Deutschen Palästina-Vereins 27 (2). Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag.
Genz, H. 2003 Cash crop production and storage in the Early Bronze Age southern Levant. Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology 16: 59-78
Gilchrist, R., and B. Sloane 2005 Requiem: the Medieval Monastic Cemetery in Britain. London: Museum of London Archaeological Service.
Glassie, H. 1975 Folk Housing in Middle Virginia. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press.
Greenberg, R. 2002 Early Urbanizations in the Levant. London: Leicester University Press.
Greenberg, R. 2003 Early Bronze Age Megiddo and Bet Shean: discontinuous settlement in sociopolitical context. Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology 16: 17-32. http://dx.doi.org/10.1558/jmea.v16i1.17
Greenberg, R. 2007 Transcaucasian colors: Khirbet Kerak Ware at Khirbet Kerak (Tel Bet Yerah). In B. Lyonnet (ed.), Les cultures des Caucase (VIe–IIIe millénaires avant notre ère), 257-68. Paris: CNRS Editions.
Greenberg, R. 2011 Travelling in (world) time: transformation, commodization, and the beginnings of urbanism in the southern Levant. In T. Wilkinson, S. Sherratt, S. Bennet and J. Bennet (eds.), Interweaving Worlds: Systemic Interactions in Eurasia, 7th to the 1st Millennia bc, 231-42. Oxford: Oxbow Books.
Greenberg, R. 2014 Introduction to the Levant in the Early Bronze Age. In M. Steiner and A. Killebrew (eds.), Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology of the Levant, 263-71. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Greenberg, R., and Y. Paz 2005 The Early Bronze Age fortifications of Tel Bet Yerah. Levant 37: 81-103. http://dx.doi.org/10.1179/lev.2005.37.1.81
Greenberg, R., S. Paz and Y. Paz 2006 Bet Yerah, The Early Bronze Age Mound I. Excavations Reports, 1933–1986. Jerusalem: Israel Antiquities Authority.
Greenberg, R., and N. Porat 1996 A third millennium Levantine pottery production center: the typology, petrography, and provenance of the Metallic Ware of northern Israel and adjacent regions. Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 301: 5-24. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/1357293
Harmanshah, O. 2011 Moving landscapes, making place: cities, monuments and commemoration at Malizi/Melid. Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology 24: 55-83. http://dx.doi.org/10.1558/jma.v24i1.55
Harrison, T. 2001 Early Bronze social organization as reflected in burial patterns from the southern Levant. In S. Wolff (ed.), Studies in the Archaeology of Israel and Neighboring Lands in Memory of Douglas L. Esse. Studies in Ancient Oriental Civilizations 59: 214-36. Chicago: Oriental Institute, University of Chicago.
Harrison, T., and S.H. Savage 2003 Settlement diversity and multivariate production: the evidence for heterarchy in the EBA Levant. Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology 16: 33-57. http://dx.doi.org/10.1558/jmea.v16i1.33
Hendon, J. 2006 Textile production as craft in Mesoamerica. Journal of Social Archaeology 6: 354-78. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1469605306067841
Ilan, D. 1995 The dawn of internationalism—The Middle Bronze Age. In T. Levy (ed.), The Archaeology of Society in the Holy Land, 297-319. London: Leicester University Press.
Ilan, D. 2002 Mortuary practices in Early Bronze Age Canaan. Near Eastern Archaeology 65: 92-104. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/3210870
Ilan, D. 2003 The Middle Bronze Age (circa 2000–1500 bce). In S. Richard (ed.), Near Eastern Archaeology: A Reader, 331-42. Winona Lake, Indiana: Eisenbrauns.
Ilan, O. 2001 Household archaeology at Arad and ‘Ai in the Early Bronze Age II. In S. Wolff (ed.), Studies in the Archaeology of Israel and Neighboring Lands in Memory of Douglas L. Esse. Studies in Ancient Oriental Civilizations 59: 317-54. Chicago: Oriental Institute, University of Chicago.
Joffe, A. 1993 Settlement and Society in the Early Bronze Age I and II Southern Levant: Complementarity and Contradiction in a Small-scale Complex Society. Monographs in Mediterranean Archaeology 4. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press.
Junker, L. 2006 Population dynamics and urbanism in pre-modern island Southeast Asia. In G. Story (ed.), Urbanism in the Pre-Industrial World: Cross-Cultural Approaches, 186-215. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press.
Kenyon, K.M. 1960 Excavations at Jericho 1. The Tombs Excavated in 1952–1954. London: British School of Archaeology in Jerusalem.
Kenyon, K.M. 1981 Excavations at Jericho 3. The Architecture and Stratigraphy of the Tell. London: British School of Archaeology in Jerusalem.
Kenyon, K.M., and T.A. Holland 1983 Excavations at Jericho 4. The Pottery Type Series and Other Finds. London: British School of Archaeology in Jerusalem.
Lave, J. 2011 Apprenticeship in Critical Ethnographic Practice. Chicago: University of Chicago. http://dx.doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226470733.001.0001
LaViolette, A., and J. Fleisher 2005 The archaeology of sub-Saharan urbanism: cities and their countrysides. In A. Stahl (ed.), African Archaeology: A Critical Introduction, 327-52. Oxford: Blackwell.
Manning, S.W., G.-M. Andreau, K.D. Fisher, P. Gerard-Little, C. Kearns, J.F. Leon, D.A. Sewell and T.M. Urban 2014 Becoming urban: investigating the anatomy of the Late Bronze Age complex, Maroni, Cyprus. Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology 27: 3-32. http://dx.doi.org/10.1558/jmea.v27i1.3
Marom, N., A. Yasur-Landau, S. Zuckerman, E.H. Cline, A. Ben-Tor and G. Bar-Oz 2014 Shepherd kings? A zooarchaeological investigation of elite precincts in Middle Bronze Age Tel Hazor and Tel Kabri. Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 371: 59-82.
McCreery, D. 1996 A salvage operation at Bab edh-Dhra’. Annual of the Department of Antiquities of Jordan 40: 152-62.
McCreery, D. 2003 The Paleoethnobotany of Bâb edh-Dhrâ`. In W.E. Rast and R.T. Schaub (eds), Bâb edh-Dhrâ`: Excavations at the Town Site (1975–1981). 1 Text. Reports of the Expedition to the Dead Sea Plain, Jordan, II, 449-63. Winona Lake, Indiana: Eisenbrauns.
Michelaki, K. 2006 Making pots and potters in the Bronze Age Maros villages of Kiszombor-Új-Élet and Klárafalva Hajdova. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 18: 355-80. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0959774308000413
Milevski, I. 2011 Early Bronze Age Goods Exchange in the Southern Levant: A Marxist Perspective. London: Equinox Press.
Nicolle, C. 1999 L’epoque des premiers bourgs fortifies pertinence de l’existence d’un processus. Beirut: Institut francais d’archeologie du Proche-Orient.
Nicolle, C., and F. Braemer 2012 Settlement networks in the southern Levant in the mid 4th millennium bc: sites with double-apsed houses in the Leja area of southern Syria during the EBA IA. Levant 44: 1-16. http://dx.doi.org/10.1179/175638012X13285409187793
Ortner, D., and B. Fröhlich 2008 The Early Bronze Age I Tombs and Burials of Bab edh-Dhra’, Jordan. Reports of the Expedition to the Dead Sea Plain, Jordan 3. Lanham, Maryland: Altamira Press.
Osborne, R., and B. Cunliffe (eds.) 2005 Mediterranean Urbanization 800–600 bc. Proceedings of the British Academy 126. London: The British Academy. http://dx.doi.org/10.5871/bacad/9780197263259.001.0001
Pauketat, T.R. 2004 Ancient Cahokia and the Mississippians. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Philip, G. 1999 Complexity and diversity in the southern Levant in 3rd millennium bc: the evidence of Khirbet Kerak Ware. Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology 12: 26-57. http://dx.doi.org/10.1558/jmea.v12i1.26
Philip, G. 2003 The Early Bronze Age of the southern Levant: a landscape approach. Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology 16: 103-32. http://dx.doi.org/10.1558/jmea.v16i1.103
Philip, G. 2008 The Early Bronze I-III Ages. In R. Adams (ed.), The Archaeology of Jordan, 161-226. London: Equinox Press.
Philip, G., and D. Baird (eds) Breaking with the Past: Ceramics and Change in the Early Bronze Age of the Southern Levant. Levantine Archaeology 2. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press.
Pikirayi, I. 2006 The demise of Great Zimbabwe, ad 1420-1550: an environmental re-appraisal. In A. Green and R. Leech (eds.), Cities in the World, 1500-2000. Society for Post-Medieval Archaeology Monograph 3: 31-47. Leeds, England: Maney Publishing.
Rast, W.E. 1999 Society and mortuary customs at Bab edh-Dhra’. In T. Kapitan (ed.), Archaeology, History and Culture in Palestine and the Near East, Essays in Memory of Albert E. Glock, 164-82. Atlanta, Georgia: Scholars Press.
Rast, W.E., and R.T. Schaub 2003 Bab edh-Dhra’: Excavations at the Town Site (1975–1981). Reports of the Expedition to the Dead Sea Plain 2. Winona Lake, Indiana: Eisenbrauns.
Riehl, S., R. Bryson and K. Pustovoytov 2008 Changing growing conditions for crops during the Near Eastern Bronze Age (3000–1200 bc): the staple carbon isotope evidence. Journal of Archaeological Science 35: 1011-22. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jas.2007.07.003
Robb, J.E. 2007 Burial treatment as transformations of bodily ideology. In N. Laneri (ed.), Performing Death: Social Analyses of Funerary Traditions in the Ancient Near East and Mediterranean, 287-97. Chicago: Oriental Institute, University of Chicago.
Roux, V., and P. de Miroschedji 2009 Revisiting the history of the potter’s wheel in the southern Levant. Levant 41: 155-73. http://dx.doi.org/10.1179/007589109X12484491671095
Rowan, Y., and J. Golden 2009 The Chalcolithic period of the southern Levant: a synthetic review. Journal of World Prehistory 22: 1-92. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10963-009-9016-4
Schaub, R.T. 1996 Pots as containers. In J. Seger (ed.), Retrieving the Past: Essays on Archaeological Research and Methodology in Honor of Gus W. Van Beek, 231-44. Winona Lake, Indiana: Eisenbrauns.
Schaub, R.T. 2008 Cultural artifacts of the EB I tombs. In D.J. Ortner and B. Fröhlich (eds.), The Early Bronze Age I Tombs and Burials of Bab edh-Dhra’, Jordan. Reports of the Expedition to the Dead Sea Plain 3, 281-96. Lanham, Maryland: Altamira Press.
Schaub, R.T., and W.E. Rast 1989 Bab edh-Dhra’: Excavations in the Cemetery Directed By Paul W. Lapp (1965–1967). Reports of the Expedition to the Dead Sea Plain 1. Winona Lake, Indiana: Eisenbrauns.
Smith, M. 2011 Classic Maya settlement clusters as urban neighborhoods: a comparative perspective on low-density urbanism. Journal de la Société des américanistes 97: 51-73.
White, C.E., M.S. Chesson and R.T. Schaub 2014 A recipe for disaster: emerging urbanism and unsustainable plant economies at Early Bronze Age Ras an-Numayra, Jordan. Antiquity 88: 363-77.
Wilkinson, T.J., G. Philip, J. Bradbury, R. Dunford, D. Donoghue, N. Galiatsos, D. Lawrence, A. Ricci and S.L. Smith 2014 Contextualizing early urbanization: settlement cores, early states and agro-pastoral strategies in the Fertile Crescent during the fourth and third millennia bc. Journal of World Prehistory 27: 43-109.
Willey, G. 1973 Men, settlement, and urbanism. Antiquity 47: 269-79.
Winter-Livneh, R., T. Svoray and I. Gilead 2012 Settlement patterns, social complexity and agricultural strategies during the Chalcolithic period in the Northern Negev, Israel. Journal of Archaeological Science 37: 284-94.
Wright, R.P. 2010 The Ancient Indus: Urbanism, Economy and Society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.