Living on the Fringe: The Archeology and History of the Negev, Sinai, and Neighboring Regions in Bronze and Iron Ages.

• Author: Dever, William G.
• Position: Review

By ISRAEL FINKELSTEIN. Monographs on Mediterranean Archaeology, vol. 6. Sheffield: SHEFFIELD ACADEMIC PRESS, 1995. Pp. 197. [pounds]40, $60.

This volume is based on eight articles in various journals from 1984 to 1992 by Israel Finkelstein (occasionally with others). Here they are revised and expanded to focus on the theme of "long term settlement and demographic processes that took place in the arid zones of the southern Levant" (p. xi). The area that is actually covered, however, is principally the Negev of Israel, with some attention given to the Sinai and to southern Jordan.

Part I (pp. 15-64) discusses the ecology of the region: the question of climatic change (negligible in historical times); subsistence patterns and carrying capacity; processes of sedentarization and nomadization; and, in particular, the vexed issue of the degree to which nomads are "invisible" in the archaeological record. Part II (pp. 67-153) treats three major periods as "case-studies" in the oscillation of settlement patterns: the Early Bronze Age (ca. 3100-2600 B.C.); the "Intermediate Bronze Age" (others' Early Bronze IV: ca. 2400-2000 B.C.); and the Iron Age (ca. 1200-600 B.C.).

Underlying much of Finkelstein's discussion is his insistence - against quite a number of other eminent archaeologists - that semi-sedentary agro-pastoralists and pastoral nomads may indeed be "invisible" in the archaeological record. Confronted, however, with the marked absence of material culture remains in semi-arid areas in most periods, Finkelstein argues that nevertheless there may have been sizeable population groups present. Perhaps; but this is obviously speculation, and I do not see that arguments based on speculation can carry any weight for the archaeologist or historian.

A crucial test for Finkelstein's theories is the Intermediate-Early Bronze IV period in the Negev (ca. 2400-2000 B.C.). Hundreds of pastoral nomadic camps of this period are known from surface surveys, and a number have been excavated by this reviewer and others. Yet in the Negev there are virtually no archaeological remains of the preceding Early Bronze I-III periods, and none whatsoever of the succeeding Middle-Late Bronze periods (ca. 2000-1200 B.C.). How can one explain the striking contrast, and the apparent gaps in occupation, unless the semi-arid regions really were virtually deserted for long periods of time? In fact, such a phenomenon would fit very well with one of Finkelstein's other basis...