Southern Levant, Bronze Age Metal Production and Utilization (original) (raw)

Introduction to the Levant During the Late Bronze Age

c. 8000-332 BCE, 2013

is has not always been the case. Once upon a time, before attempts to date the volcanic eruption of Th era by various scientifi c means, the beginning of the Late Bronze Age in both the Aegean and Cyprus was aligned with the start of the Egyptian New Kingdom at c. 1550 bce (Sjöqvist 1940 : 197; cf. Manning 1995 : 198-9); and C. F.-A. Schaeff er (1948 : 392) made a brief but short-lived attempt to align the end of the Late Bronze Age in Cyprus with that at Ugarit (c. 1200 bce), before the scheme originally devised by the Swedish Cyprus Expedition, which brought it into line with the end of the Submycenaean ceramic phase in Greece (c. 1050 bce), reasserted itself. From current viewpoints at least, neither of these latter dates has very much to do directly with the switch to iron as a base metal.

The Early Bronze Age of the Southern Levant

Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology, 2003

is paper seeks to explore ways in which a landscape perspective might shed new light on the nature of the social and economic changes detectable in the archaeological record of the Early Bronze Age (EBA) of the southern Levant. e discussion focuses upon key anthropogenic landscape elements, in particular the construction of walled settlements and visible burial monuments, and the impact of important agricultural changes both upon the experiential landscape and on the organization and priorities of EBA communities.

The Southern Levant (Cisjordan) during the Early Bronze Age

M.L. Steiner and A.E. Killebrew eds, The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology of the Levant c.8000–332 BCE, Oxford University Press , 2014

Towards the middle of the fourth millennium bc , a new world emerged in the Near East. While Mesopotamia and Egypt began a path toward state formation, at the southern tip of the Fertile Crescent, Palestine also underwent rapid and deep changes, albeit on a more modest scale. Th eir fi rst manifestations, around 3700 bc , signal the end of the Late Chalcolithic period and the beginning of the Early Bronze Age.

CHALCOLITHIC – EARLY BRONZE AGE I TRANSITION IN THE SOUTHERN LEVANT: THE LITHIC PERSPECTIVE

Paléorient

This paper examines the differences between the fl int tool assemblages of the Ghassulian, the major cultural entity of the Chalcolithic period, and those of the fi rst phases of the Early Bronze Age. Recently it has been claimed that the Canaanean blades, an Early Bronze Age I tool-type, appeared already in the Ghassulian. It is our view that this is not the case and that there are ample differences between the lithic tools assemblages of both periods. These differences refl ect profound changes between the Chalcolithic period and the Early Bronze Age.