Regionalism, social boundaries and cultural interaction in the Levantine Early Bronze Age

The Levantine Early Bronze Age (EBA; 3800/3600–2600/2500 BCE; Regev et al. 2012; Table 1) challenges generations of researchers, that are forced to change approaches, refine methods and reconsider narratives in order to explain the nature of social change and the profound transformations reflected in the material culture (Albright 1949; Chesson 2015; Chesson and Philip 2003; Esse 1991; Greenberg 2019; de Miroschedji 1989; Philip 2001; Philip and Baird 2000). The elephant in the room is, of course, the urbanization processes that swept through the Ancient Near East during the 4th and 3rd millennia BCE, resulting in unmistakable change in the social, economic and political matrix in all sub-regions comprising this area. The EBA in the southern and central Levant involves independent trajectories within the overall pattern of rising complexity, with multifarious regional and local narratives. Co-existing and being in contact with societies that participated in the formation of the first bureaucratic states and literate civilizations, Levantine societies found their own, different, non-linear ways of re-organization and development (Chesson 2015; Chesson and Philip 2003; Greenberg 2019; Joffe 1993; Pollock 1999; Stein 2012; Yoffe 2005).

Table 1 Early Bronze Age chronology (Regev et al. 2012; http://www.arcane.uni-tuebingen.de/rg1/2FinalReport-SL.pdf)

Current	ARCANE Phases	^14C Chronology
Early Bronze Age IA	Early Southern Levant 1 (ESL 1)	3800/3600–3300 BCE
Early Bronze Age IB	Early Southern Levant 2–3 (ESL 2–3)	3300–3010/3050 BCE
Early Bronze Age II	Early Southern Levant 4 (ESL 4)	3100/3050–2900/2850 BCE
Early Bronze Age III	Early Southern Levant 5–6 (ESL 5–6)	2900/2850–2600/2500 BCE

The co-existing, and sometimes competing, regional narratives of social and political developments in the Levantine EBA are a reflection of the environmental variability and fragmentation characterizing the narrow Mediterranean strip along the Eastern Mediterranean littoral and neighbouring steppe and desert regions. The abundance of archaeological data assembled from the different parts of the Levant expresses the existence of small-scale, yet spatially coherent settlement systems (or activity systems in the case of more arid regions) with high cultural integration. Each of these systems had a somewhat different trajectory within the overall EBA sequence, resulting in distinct patterns of material culture that only partially overlap chronologically (Ben-Yosef et al. 2016; Chesson 2015; Greenberg 2002; 2019; de Miroschedji 1989; 2014; Müller-Neuhof 2014; Richard 2014; Savage et al. 2007). These differences constitute tangible manifestations to the formation and recreation of social identities, circulation of ideas and traditions, reshaping of cultural boundaries, and the rise and decline of regional powers. Deep comparative examination of the material culture in each region may get us closer to delineating the invention of regional entities, in the sense of social and political units, as well as intra- and inter-regional mechanisms of cultural transmission. This avenue of research entails reconstruction of social organizations, local economies and regional traditions.

The workshop that led to this Special Issue of Levant was initial proposed more than three years ago, and was eventually held as part of the Covid-19-postponed 13th International Congress on the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East (ICAANE) in April 2021, in Bologna, Italy. The intention was to have a lively discourse between archaeologists working on various aspects of the EBA in different parts of the Levant, the aim being to shed light on Levantine EBA cultures and the interfaces between them, from the early/middle-4th to the mid-3rd millennium BCE, by exploring aspects of settlement/activity patterns and material culture, and their social and cultural implications. By so doing we were hoping to promote discussion on the following topics:

• Regional narratives of social and political processes in local communities and settlement systems;

• Inter- and intra-regional cultural interactions identified in the material culture, including shared social practices, social identities and boundaries in the EBA realm;

• Production and distribution systems: economic systems, subsistence modes and trade;

• The significance of environment and landscape in promoting regional variability in material culture, social practices and cultural development;

• The concepts of change and transitions in the EBA and the mechanisms and triggers involved in cultural change.

The articles presented in this Special Issue, most of which are based on presentations given at the aforementioned workshop while others have joined along the way, illustrate the current diversity of approaches and research methods applied in the archaeology of EBA Levant. While this collection of articles emphasizes this diversity, it also demonstrates the need to ask unified questions about the processes and dynamics occurring in all sub-regions of the Levant, thereby allowing the quilt to take shape.

Three of the articles included in this volume present updated discussions of regional narratives. These three articles also represent three different environments — Mediterranean, steppe and desert climate zones — yet all three regions discussed may also be considered, sensu Philip and Bradbury (2010), ‘sub-optimal’. Ido Wachtel re-examines the Mediterranean region of the Upper Galilee, a wooded, topographically-complex highland region south of the Lebanese border in modern-day Israel, using the results of a new systematic survey he conducted in the years 2014–2018 (Wachtel 2018). Integrating and analyzing both new and previously collected data from the Upper Galilee and adjacent regions (e.g., Frankel et al. 2001), the paper describes the re-organization of the sparse Chalcolithic village system during EB I followed by substantial demographic growth and settlement expansion into new environments during EB II, highlighted by the elevated Meron Block which was settled only sporadically throughout history, and the creation of a regional settlement hierarchy. This new analysis allows Watchel to reject Finkelstein’s (1995) ‘peer polities’ network model for the earliest EBA urbanization phase in favour of Greenberg’s (2002) theory on larger political entities with impressive economic power.

Analyzing site morphology and settlement networks in the basaltic steppe regions of south-western Syria, Christophe Nicolle builds on the decades-long study of these regions by himself and other colleagues (e.g., al-Maqdissi and Braemer 2006; Betts 1991; Braemer 2011; Braemer and Sapin 2001; Nicolle and Braemer 2002; 2012) and presents a wholesale synthesis of major settlement trends during the 4th and 3rd millennia in these regions. This allows him to reject the global evolutionary model for Levantine EBA urbanization that heralded early scholarship (e.g., Ben-Tor 1992; Finkelstein 1995; Kempinski 1978; de Miroschedji 1999; Rast 2001). By so doing Nicolle also reiterates the urgent need to divert (some of) the scholarly focus on watered lowland regions, to areas that were once seen as marginal but which can no longer be omitted from comparative, inter-regional investigation of social change during the EBA. The sheer scale of EB I and II settlements and settlement systems in these regions, and the changing perceptions of community spatial organization between periods, attest to the importance of so-called ‘sub-optimal’ regions not merely as presenting feeble echoes (yet generally similar trends) of cultural developments centered in the Mediterranean zone, but as significant regional sceneries of social creation and transformation (see also Bradbury et al. 2014; Müller-Neuhof 2014; Wilkinson et al. 2014).

This standpoint, also seen in Wachtel’s discussion of the Galilean Highlands, is on full display in Aaron Gidding’s reappraisal of EBA copper production systems and the archaeology of the copper ore districts of the hyper-arid Arabah Valley. Applying a New Institutional Economic approach and focusing on structures that govern and mediate economic activities (mainly smelting-related), Gidding points to the changes that effected the structure of transaction costs for the copper producers of the Faynan region. In his opinion, throughout the 3rd millennium BCE copper production in Faynan was connected to regional developments in the Negev, it was not controlled by external centralized authorities, but responded, at substantially different rates, to external factors (compare Ben-Yosef et al. 2016; Finkelstein et al. 2018; Rosen 2017). Gidding describes the copper system in Faynan, specifically in the heyday of EBA production (that encompassed both the latter part of EB III and the first half of the subsequent Intermediate Bronze Age (c. 2500/2400–2000/1900 BCE)), as a vertically integrated network with long-distance connections and the ability to introduce technological innovations.

Two other contributions explore the realm of the ritual as the basis to uncover community and regional identities and spheres of interaction. These articles introduce two new arenas of exploration, located on both sides of the Dead Sea. Employing a community of practice approach (Lave and Wenger 1991; Wenger 1998), Meredith Chesson analyses EB IA funerary practices of the south-eastern Dead Sea Plain. Viewing funerary practice as structured taught and learned craft, she explains the emergence of spatial and temporal variations in mortuary practices as a result of specific community decision making and/or the influence of brokers (Roddick and Stahl 2016). Her focus on the choices made by mortuary communities of practice allows her to offer new interpretations of the south-east Dead Sea Plain cemeteries as boundary objects, as well as fields of reconnection and knowledge exchange for mobile people of early EB I.

Within the same regional and symbolic sphere, Samuel Atkins and Uri Davidovich reconsider the enigmatic site cluster of Mitzpe Shalem, investigated in the 1960s and 1970s, in the upper part of the western Dead Sea Escarpment (Bar-Adon 1989). Analyzing the layout, topography and material culture of the three sites comprising this cluster, Atkins and Davidovich reach the conclusion that the cluster served as a liminal space (sensu Turner 1969) for transformative ritual performances, possibly related to symbolically-laden meetings of representatives of different communities or socio-political entities from around the Dead Sea and the Lower Jordan Valley. Their work within Turner’s framework of structure and anti-structure allows them to offer a new interpretation of the activities performed at Mitzpe Shalem, located in a ‘neutral’ zone much distanced from the communities involved in the cluster’s operation.

The final two articles included in this Special Issue focus on socio-economic developments as studied from material (analytical) and assemblage (typological) compositions. Using a rich, semi-quantitative dataset of 4th and early 3rd millennia BCE pottery assemblages of excavated Cis-Jordanian sites, Yitzhak Paz and Itay Elad identify changes in usage patterns of pottery vessels through a long Late Chalcolithic (LC), EB I and EB II sequence. Comparing ceramic assemblages from different sites, they identify a preference for serving vessels in the LC, diversification of assemblage composition in EB IA, followed by an increase in the cooking component of the Late EB IB ceramic repositories. The authors also point to a continuation of Late EB IB trends into EB II assemblages that have a minor South Levantine Metallic Ware (SLMW) (Greenberg 2019; Greenberg and Porat 1996) component (i.e., south of the Jezreel Valley), in contrast to preference for serving and storage vessels in the assemblages dominated by SLMW. The latter, according to the authors, reflect socio-political changes and the appearance of related eating and drinking practices deriving from the membership of the SLMW ‘club’.

Finally, Naama Yahalom-Mack, Vladimir Wolff Avrutis and Yigal Erel present the results of their metallurgical analyses conducted on metal weapons from EB I Nesher-Ramla cemetery, located in the Judean Foothills. The analyzed daggers were produced in the southern Levant, using alloyed copper imported from eastern Anatolia. The metal trade, according to the authors, could serve as a conduit for cultural transference through which urbanization concepts transcended from Upper Mesopotamia and the northern Levant into the southern regions. The suggested reintroduction of locally-produced alloyed copper objects sourced in the remote ‘north’, which flourished during the LC, in the latter half of the 5th millennium, demonstrates the significant impact of the growing body of analytical research on the study of EBA connectivity mechanisms and technological and cultural transmissions, even though, in the studied case, the actual mechanisms remain obscure.

Indubitably, the presented studies demonstrate the importance of combining old and new data and the potential outcomes of methodologically- and theoretically-framed re-evaluation of old data. It is interesting and encouraging to see the outcome of meticulous data collection and re-analyses of the results of old surveys and excavations. These efforts should be expended in the near future, given the overwhelmingly large datasets collected in more recent field projects, especially in salvage excavations in over-populated regions.

The articles presented in this Special Issue, while they do not revolutionize our understanding of Levantine EBA, take on new perspectives when investigating specific aspects and regions of the Levantine EBA, moving us one step closer to a tighter and deeper description of this human weave. Diversity in research approaches and the use of various methodological frameworks result in more nuanced reconstructions of Levantine EBA societies, characterized primarily by flexibility, variability and the absence of one main narrative of social change. The diversity of different coexisting societal groups and communities with their own trajectories, highlights the complexity of the social, economic and political quilt during the EBA, and the problems in reaching one unifying story of cultural development.

Another important trait that can be noted is the absence of any clear evidence for cultural center-periphery relations in the EBA Levant. Instead, multiple lowland, upland, steppe and desert communities and entities interact through fields of communication and exchange of knowledge, raw materials and commodities, as well as ideological values (Goren and Porat 1989; Greenberg 2019; Ilan and Sebanne 1989; Joffe 1993; Manclossi and Rosen 2022; Milevski 2011; Paz and Iserlis 2009; Shimelmitz et al. 2000). With these fundamental understandings at hand, we are called, once again, to turn our attention to the study of the nature and degree of cultural and economic integration within the mosaic of Levantine environments. We are also called to address mechanisms of cultural transmission and triggers of social and political change, allowing the archaeological evidence to be voiced in new ways. Decoding the changing motivations of EBA societies to transform might take us closer to the understanding of social boundaries and cultural interactions in the Levantine Early Bronze Age.