Shedding light on the urban/rural nexus about 2500 BCE. The 2019 excavations at Khirbat Iskandar, Jordan

Khirbat Iskandar, Jordan is one of the rare sites in the southern Levant to include substantial Early Bronze (EB) III and IV occupation on the tell. The 2019 excavations, which afforded stratigraphic evidence for continuous occupation at the EB III/IV nexus, affirm the earlier postulated view of cultural continuity between the two. These data shed light on the controversial “collapse” of EB III urbanism, the mechanisms of recovery in the post-“collapse” period, and the subsequent ruralization during the EB IV period. This new dataset questions traditional views of collapse, suggesting rather that societal transformation in current theory resonates with the Khirbat Iskandar evidence along with a range of social constructs, like recovery, resilience, agency, along with transformation.