The Population of Palestine in Iron Age II

Abstract

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Jerusalem in the Persian (and Early Hellenistic) Period and the Wall of Nehemiah

“…4 These data fit well the situation in the immediate environs of Jerusalem, where the number of spots with archaeological remains dropped from 140 in the Iron II to 14 in the Persian period (Kloner 2001: 92;2003: 28*; 30* for the Early Hellenistic period). They also fit the general demographic depletion in the entire area of the province of Yehud-a maximum of 20,000-30,000 people in the Persian period according to Carter (1999: 195-205) and Lipschits (2003: 364), c. 15,000 according to my own calculations-about a third or a fourth of the population of that area in the Late Iron II (Carter 1999: 247 based on Broshi and Finkelstein 1992;Ofer 1993). …”

Climate and the Late Bronze Collapse: New Evidence from the Southern Levant

“…Especially noteworthy are settlement developments on the margin of the settled lands-the spread of activity in the Beer-sheba Valley (Herzog 1994), the rise of an early Moabite territorial polity south of the Arnon River (Finkelstein and Lipschits 2011) and the appearance of Iron I sites on the Edomite plateau (Finkelstein 1992). Note that these records were sampled in relatively low resolution: in the Abant profile the mean sampling resolution interval was 210 years per sample and in Eski Acigöl 85 years per sample.…”

“…Note that reevaluation of the pottery record seems to show that the number of Iron I settlements in Edom was smaller than listed in Finkelstein 1992. could also have stemmed from anthropogenic pressure; surge in human activity that started in the Iron I reached its zenith during the Iron IIB (8th century BCE). 12 In the Northern Kingdom the sedentary population is estimated to have tripled between the end of the Iron I, around 950 BCE, and the peak of the Iron IIB in the mid-8th century BCE (Broshi and Finkelstein 1992: 55).…”

The Philistines and Acculturation: Culture Change and Ethnic Continuity in the Iron Age

“…Only 4 percent (47 of 1,087) known Iron Age II Palestinian sites are in Philistia. The population of Philistia was just 36,000 (9 percent) of Palestine's estimated 403,000 inhabitants (Broshi and Finkelstein 1992). The Philistines' small numbers became an important factor during the Iron Age II because they were no longer the dominant power in Palestine.…”