The Dawn of the Bronze Age: The Pattern of Settlement in the Lower Jordan Valley and the Desert Fringes of Samaria During the Chalcolithic Period and and Early Bronze Age I

615 Pages·2014·37.24 MB·English

by  Shay Bar

The Dawn of the Bronze Age
Culture and History of the
Ancient Near East
Founding Editor
M.H.E. Weippert
Editor-in-Chief
Thomas Schneider
Editors
Eckart Frahm
W. Randall Garr
B. Halpern
Theo P.J. van den Hout
Irene J. Winter
VOLUME 72
The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/chan
The Dawn of the Bronze Age
The Pattern of Settlement in the
Lower Jordan Valley and the Desert Fringes
of Samaria during the Chalcolithic Period
and Early Bronze Age I
By
Shay Bar
LEIDEN (cid:116) BOSTON
2014
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ISSN  1566-2055
ISBN 978-90-04-26563-9 (hardback)
ISBN 978-90-04-26564-6 (e-book)
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CONTENTS
Preface ...........................................................................................................1
Chapter One
General Introduction ..................................................................................3
Chapter Two
Geographical and Environmental Data ....................................................7
Chapter Three
History of Archaeological Research of the Chalcolithic and Early
Bronze I Periods in the Study Area .........................................................35
Chapter Four
Methodology ..............................................................................................42
Chapter Five
Settlement Patterns in the Southern Jordan Valley and the Desert
Fringes of Samaria in the Chalcolithic Period .......................................53
Chapter Six
Settlement Patterns in the Southern Jordan Valley and the Desert
Fringes of Samaria in the Early Bronze I Period ...................................96
Chapter Seven
Comparison of the Settlement Pattern with the Settlement in the
Eastern Jordan Valley and the Slopes of the Jordanian Mountain
Ridge in the Chalcolithic and Early Bronze I Periods ........................134
Chapter Eight
The Pottery of the Chalcolithic and Early Bronze I Periods in the
Jordan Valley and Southern Desert Fringes of Samaria .....................142
Chapter Nine
'Ein Hilu: A Chalcolithic Site on the Desert Fringes of Samaria .......195
VI contents
Chapter Ten
One of the Latest Chalcolithic sites of the Jordan Valley? Fazael 2:
Preliminary Report of the 2007–2008 Excavation Seasons ...............272
Chapter Eleven
The Excavations at Fazael 7 – One of the Largest Dwelling
Complexes from the Chalcolithic Period in the Southern Levant ....322
Chapter Twelve
Sheikh Diab 2 – An Early Bronze Age I Period Hamlet in the
Jordan Valley ............................................................................................346
Chapter Thirteen
Fazael 4: The Excavations at the Early Bronze Age I Site ...................409
Chapter Fourteen
General Conclusions ...............................................................................442
Chapter Fifteen
Site Catalogue ..........................................................................................458
Reference List ...........................................................................................577
PREFACE
Professor Adam Zertal encouraged me to write this book. It was after a
long research project that culminated when I received my PhD diploma
from the University of Haifa in the summer of 2009. “You excavated five
sites, re-analyzed more than 120 existing and newly discovered survey
sites, and wrote more than 650 pages of new data regarding the Chal-
colithic and Early Bronze Age I (EB I) periods of the Jordan Valley – all
in Hebrew?” The reader must realize that according to the regulations
of Israeli universities most theses are written in Hebrew, and the fact
that most of the scholarly world cannot read them is not given much
consideration. That was when I started to translate parts of my thesis
into English, and added new chapters to illuminate the subject, so that
any researcher everywhere can use the data.
The western Jordan Valley and the desert fringes of Samaria are an
ideal area for research. This semi-arid region has been sparsely inhab-
ited from the Middle Bronze Age II (MB II) period until modern times,
and the absence of urban processes and development helped to protect
ancient sites from destruction. The geo-political situation in this region
during the last 200 years, and the remoteness from centres of popula-
tion, resulted in an almost complete lack of research, and this area of
750 km2 was one of the most neglected regions in the archaeology of
modern Israel/Palestine. This changed when the Manasseh Hill Coun-
try Survey started its long endeavour in this area 30 years ago, and since
then our knowledge of the archaeology and history of large parts of
Samaria and the Jordan Valley has developed. This book presents some
of the data collected by myself and others in this long project, and in
other pioneering work in this area.
This book adds new data about excavated and surveyed sites dat-
ing to the Chalcolithic and EB I periods in the western Jordan Valley
and the desert fringes of Samaria. It also sheds new light on intriguing
questions concerning these periods, such as the changes in the pattern
of settlement and the spatial distribution of structures within the settle-
ment; the poorly understood end phase of the Chalcolithic period; and
the new understanding and redefining of the Um-Hammad style of
pottery from EB Ib. These and many other issues are described in detail.
I am grateful to many friends and colleagues who helped and en-
couraged me during this long journey of excavating, surveying, data
2 preface
processing, writing, translating, and finally editing this work. I whole-
heartedly thank Adam Zertal who was the unknowing motivator for
this book. He was the supervisor of my PhD, and we spent many hours
discussing the finds and data gathered in his long-lasting Manasseh Hill
Country Survey. I thank Adam and the entire team of the Manasseh
Hill Country Survey for seven years of true friendship, and many long
hot days working together in the Jordan Valley.
I would also like to thank my friends the archaeologists and volun-
teers who helped in the field seasons. Special amongst them are the
field managers, who volunteered every season for more than five years:
Uri Davidovich, Hagar Ben Basat, Hagai Cohen Klonymus, and Oren
Cohen. I am forever in debt to the Leiba family in hospitable Moshav
Fazael for being a true family to me for so many years.
Professional and logistical assistance was provided by the Zinman
Institute of Archaeology at the University of Haifa, and especially its
drivers, Prof. Segal and Dr. Eisenberg; the Archaeology Department at
the University of Haifa, and its helpful staff and researchers; the Jordan
Valley regional council; and the Shomron and Jordan Valley Survey
Foundation.
Thanks also go to the scholars who submitted professional chapters
for the excavation reports presented here. They were: Haim Winter
(lithics), Guy Bar-Oz, Noa Raban-Gerstel and Ronny Zuckerman
(fauna), Elisabetta Boaretto (radiocarbon dating), and Danny Rosen-
berg and Dror Ben-Yosef (stone tools). Special thanks are due to Eliot
Braun for long conversations about the proto-history of the southern
Levant.
I thank all the people who helped in the making of this book: Sapir
Haad (graphic design), Don Glick (translations), John Tresman (edit-
ing), and everyone at Brill.
Last, but not least, my caring family; my dear parents, my wife Inbal,
and my daughters Goni and Or, who spent too many nights without
their father, and whom I love so much.
CHAPTER ONE
GENERAL INTRODUCTION
The second half of the 5th millennium and the 4th millennium BCE
– the Chalcolithic period and the EB I – have recently become a signifi-
cant and important, and sometimes controversial, topic in the archae-
ology of Israel and the southern Levant.
Numerous fundamental questions confront researchers who deal
with these periods, and we will present just a few:
– What was the nature of these periods? What settlement pattern
was unique to each of them? What was the sociological character of the
inhabitants? What was the inhabitants’ economy based on? What sets
the periods apart?
– Until now the transition from the Chalcolithic to the Early Bronze
Age (EB) has been a gap in archaeological research. Can any new data
be presented regarding the nature of this transition? Was there cultural-
settlement continuity? Was there material continuity?
– How did the urbanization process that characterizes the EB II
begin? Had it already begun in the EB I, or was it a product of the EB II?
This book will address these questions and others, and will propose
a number of characteristics and new ideas which will aid researchers in
formulating a more firmly based view with regard to the time and the
region of the study.
The aim of the study is to examine the settlement pattern and its
characteristics from standpoints of both chronology (Chalcolithic and
EB I) and geography (the western Jordan Valley and the desert fringes
of Samaria).1
Two parameters make this study unique:
The first involves geography: this is the first study conducted in the
field over an extensive area in the western Jordan Valley and desert
fringes of Samaria. This area has rarely been investigated in the past,
giving an opportunity to introduce a new, wide-reaching, and so far un-
known collection of data. The idea that in the Jordan Valley there was
an important centre and a main transit route in the southern Levant,
1 This region, covering an area of about 750 km2, stretches from Nahal Bezeq in the
north to Wadi 'Aujjeh in the south, and from the Jordan River in the east to the lower
part of the scarp of the eastern hills of Samaria in the west.