Excavation and Survey in the Jabbul Plain, Western Syria: The Umm el-Marra Project 1996–1997

Abstract

The 1996 and 1997 seasons of the Hopkins-Amsterdam project in the Jabbul plain, western Syria, have generated new results on Bronze Age urbanism at Tell Umm el-Marra and elucidated longer-term settlement patterns in the Jabbul region. Excavation results have documented the foundation of Umm el-Marra as a regional center in the Early Bronze Age, provided new data on a period of decentralization in Middle Bronze I, and supplied evidence of the regeneration of urbanism in MB II. Faunal and archaeobotanical analysis broaden our understanding of these developments, attesting to an economy overwhelmingly dependent on the steppe environment, with an emphasis on large-scale onager hunting in MB II. Finally, a regional survey provides data on long-term demographic and socioeconomic trends, furnishing an expansive time range and spatial context for our under-standing of developmental patterns in the region. The survey results supply new information on the limits of the Uruk expansion, cycles of Bronze Age urbanization, changing patterns of steppe exploitation, and demo-graphic and agricultural extensification in the Byzantine and Early Islamic periods. Finally, a regional survey provides data on long-term demographic and socioeconomic trends, furnishing an expansive time range and spatial context for our understanding of developmental patterns in the region. The survey results supply new information on the limits of the Uruk expansion, cycles of Bronze Age urbanization, changing patterns of steppe exploitation, and demographic and agricultural extensification in the Byzantine and Early Islamic periods.* Disciplines Near Eastern Languages and Societies

Mediterranean valleys revisited: Linking soil erosion, land use and climate variability in the Northern Levant

“…But it is increasingly evident that the entirety of the Mediterranean world saw a remarkable intensification of agricultural production and a rapid transformation in settlement organization during the Roman period, from Western Europe (van der Leeuw, 1998;Picazo et al, 2000;van der Leeuw, 2003), to North Africa (Barker et al, 1996), to the Near East (Wilkinson, 2003, 128-150;Casana, 2007). Certainly, archaeological surveys from throughout the Orontes River Valley (e.g., Marfoe, 1979;Tate, 1992;Marfoe, 1997;Tate, 1997;Casana and Wilkinson, 2005;Philip et al, 2005;Pamir, 2005;Tchalenko, 1953-8) and the Levant more generally (e.g., Finkelstein and Lederman, 1997;Blanton, 2000;Kennedy, 2000;Schwartz et al, 2000) have found that during the Roman and late Roman periods the density of settlement rapidly increased and was coupled with an expansion into uplands, desert margins, and other previously unoccupied areas. Palynological studies from the Levant further support these findings, showing a contemporary, massive increase in the cultivation of olives and other upland crops (Baruch, 1990;Baruch and Bottema, 1999;Meadows, 2005).…”

Archaeobotanical inference of Bronze Age land use and land cover in the eastern Mediterranean

“…3000e1200 B.C.E. ; Schwartz et al, 2000;Schwartz, 2007). A legacy of long-term intensive agriculture and pastoralism has left the region resembling a treeless agro-desert with portions of previously-cultivated land left bare (Wilkinson, 2003, p. 18).…”

Contextualizing Early Urbanization: Settlement Cores, Early States and Agro-pastoral Strategies in the Fertile Crescent During the Fourth and Third Millennia BC

“…The fragmented landscapes drained by these riverine corridors provide smaller-scale landscapes of tells with more muted hierarchies than the extensive agricultural plains. Particularly common are small tells (1-3 ha), which dominate these cultural landscapes from the LC onwards (Schwartz and Falconer 1994;Philip 2007;Casana 2007;Schwartz et al 2000;Wilkinson et al 2012). However, where the valleys open up, or are flanked by broader plains, Bronze Age cities attained some 50-60 ha in area.…”