Settlement and Demographic Processes in Israel's Coastal Plain from the Chalcolithic to the Middle Bronze Age

Assessing Departures from Log-Normality in the Rank-Size Rule

“…Furthermore, the plot of the convexity below the expected line in Figure 6 is quite similar to that produced by a central place plot (see Falconer & Savage, 1995: 40-41, figure 1(a)). Gophna & Portugali (1988: figure 1) present data from this period that suggest two different settlement systems in the Levantine coastal plain during the Chalcolithic; both were essentially non-urban. The rank-size analysis supports their conclusions, and may indicate further that the two systems may have been relatively well integrated into early settlement networks resembling central place systems.…”

The Interaction of Climate Change and Agency in the Collapse of Civilizations ca. 2300–2000 BC

“…West of the Jordan and the Dead Sea, not a single site has been found that survived the collapse. A few sites survived in the stream-fed northern Levant (Gophna and Portugali 1988;de Miroschedji 2010).…”

Secondary burial cemeteries, visibility and land tenure: A view from the southern Levant Chalcolithic period

“…Geographically, the Ghassulian is distributed in the Jordan valley, the Shephella and the central hill country, the central and southern coastal plain, the Dead Sea basin and in the northern Negev (Gilead, 2007, p. 35;Gilead, 2009, p. 345). Surveys and studies indicate a pronounced population growth during this period (Finkelstein and Gophna, 1993;Gophna and Portugali, 1988;Gophna and Tsuk, 2005;Khalaily and Marder, 2010). This is apparent not only from the increase in the number of known sites but also from the increase in site size and from the expansion into areas which were unpopulated or sparsely populated prior to the Chalcolithic period, such as the semi-arid Northern Negev (Golden, 2009, p. 9;Khalaily and Marder, 2010, p. 15;Lev-Tov Chattah and Smith, 2006, p. 472;Lev-Tov et al, 2003, p. 122;Rowan and Golden, 2009, pp.…”

“…Levy and Alon (1987, p. 348) suggest, on the basis of ethnographic data, that secondary burials characterize sedentary rather than semi-nomadic societies. During recent years many habitation sites have been discovered in these regions (Gophna and Portugali, 1988;Van den Brink, 2008;Van den Brink and Gophna, 2005). Thus, it is currently agreed that the burial caves were used by sedentary communities living nearby (Khalaily and Marder, 2010, pp.…”