Description
Book SynopsisThis critical examination of the first cycle of urbanization, collapse and reurbanization in the 4th-2nd millennium BCE Levant is now reissued with a new preface reflecting on developments in research since its first publication. The core of the study is a detailed analysis of settlement fluctuations and material culture development in the Hula Valley, at the crossroads between modern Israel, Syria and Lebanon. Focusing on field data and a close reading of the material text, the book emphasizes the variety exhibited in patterns of cultural and social change when small, densely settled regions are carefully scrutinized. Using the concepts of time-space edges and shifting loci of power, the study suggests new scenarios to explain changes in the regional archaeological record, and considers the implications these have for existing reconstructions of social evolution in the larger region. The Levant is shown to be composed of a fluid mosaic of polities that moved along multiple, if often p
Table of ContentsList of Figures List of Tables Preface and Acknowledgments 1. Introduction 2. The Hula Valley Environment 3. The Stratigraphic-Chronological Framework: Sites and Material Culture of the Hula Valley, EB I-MB I 4. Hula Valley Settlement Patterns: A Chronological Survey 5. Patterns of Settlement and Social Change in the Hula Valley, EB I-MB I, and Their Implications for the Study of Early Urban Cultures in the Southern Levant 6. Conclusion: The Ebb and Flow of Early Urbanism in the Levant
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