Settlement and Society in the Early Bronze Age I and II, Southern Levant: Complementarity and Contradiction in a Small-scale Complex Society.

• Author: Schaub, R. Thomas

By ALEXANDER H. JOFFE. Monographs in Mediterranean Archaeology, 4. Sheffield: SHEFFIELD ACADEMIC PRESS, 1993. Pp. ix + 129; 3 foldout maps. [pounds]25, $37.50.

The purpose of this revised doctoral dissertation is to create a theoretical model to explain the well-documented emergence in the southern Levant (modern Israel and Jordan) of walled settlements during the Early Bronze II period (3100-2700 B.C.E.). These walled towns were preceded by a village society in EB I (3500-3100) and the shift to an urban society is discussed in terms of developing social complexity.

Joffe is primarily concerned with processes of change rather than with highly detailed analyses of structure such as internal site features. Throughout the study, the small scale of settlement in the southern Levant (in contrast to the large urban sites of Mesopotamia) is seen as a critical concern in assessing social complexity and in evaluating the idea of urbanism and state in this region. In the southern Levant, moreover, certain environmental constraints forced the development of settlement patterns and of subsistence strategies that differ from those evolving in Egypt and Mesopotamia. Yet, in certain periods, the political circumstances in these regions are recognized as clearly significant factors in stimulating changes in the southern Levant.

In chapter one the author is concerned with method and theory. Here, he describes the Decapolis database utilized in the study.(1) He also examines various problematic issues connected with archaeological surveys, the formation processes of tells in the Near East and the impact of these processes on survey evidence. A discussion of how settlement patterns relate to questions of social complexity introduces key theoretical questions. Reflections on the prospects for settlement archaeology conclude the chapter.

The basic theme of the study is introduced in chapter two. Cycles of collapsing and rising complexity are proposed as a persistent characteristic of the societies of the southern Levant. Environmental constraints are identified as an important factor in "preadapting" societies in this region to cycles of decomposition and reformulation. These cycles are seen as exemplified first in the Chalcolithic period, particularly the area of the northern Negev, where a society characterized by sophisticated villages and chiefdoms eventually collapses. Causes proposed for the collapse are climatic changes, attenuation of sociopolitical...