The Southern Levant in Early Bronze IV. Issues and perspectives in the pottery evidence. Volume I: Text, Volume II: Appendices and Plates

The book is a revised and expanded version of a PhD dissertation defended at the Sapienza University of Rome. Based on an extensive dataset of 147 archaeological sites, it deals with chronological and historical-archaeological issues in the study of the last phase of the Early Bronze Age in the Southern Levant. The ultimate aim of the study is to go beyond simplistic views of Early Bronze IV as a homogeneous and static interlude of collapse between two phases of urbanization. Thus, the archaeological dataset is used, in the first volume, to delineate within Early Bronze IV in the Southern Levant, a progressive trajectory including an early stage of crisis, after the collapse of the EB III socio-economic system, gradual recovery, and, finally, growth in a late phase, paving the way for societal regeneration during the following Middle Bronze Age. Traditional comparative stratigraphy and ceramic typology are used as means to propose a relative periodization of Early Bronze IV along more innovative approaches to technological changes identifiable in stratified ceramic assemblages within long Early Bronze IV sequences at the key-sites. These are used to investigate socio-cultural and socio-economic changes during the period, including a broad range of aspects, such as ware production, distribution, and consumption, settlement patterns, mortuary customs, convivial habits, trade and exchange, and cultural contacts with the neighbouring areas. The second volume includes a detailed typological study of the evidence, and the catalogue of the 147 archaeological sites taken into account, plus a rich graphic and photographic documentation.