Arrowheads Of The Neolithic Levant

A multi-dimensional seriation analysis of arrowhead assemblages from Neolithic sites in the Levant is presented. An attempt is made to correlate the relative dating obtained by seriation with stratigraphie evidence and available C-14 dates. The implications of the analysis for the study of diffusion processes and sub-regional contacts is also discussed.

Not everyone bought into the Bronze Age right away, and Rosen describes and classifies the stone tools that continued to be made and used in the Middle East for the next two thousand years. He considers subtypes, function, distribution, chronology, the organization of production, styles, the relationship between lithic and metal technology, and other aspects. Over 100 drawings and maps provide archaeologists with a guide to identifying finds. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

This Handbook aims to serve as a research guide to the archaeology of the Levant, an area situated at the crossroads of the ancient world that linked the eastern Mediterranean, Anatolia, Mesopotamia, and Egypt. The Levant as used here is a historical geographical term referring to a large area which today comprises the modern states of Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, western Syria, and Cyprus, as well as the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and the Sinai Peninsula. Unique in its treatment of the entire region, it offers a comprehensive overview and analysis of the current state of the archaeology of the Levant within its larger cultural, historical, and socio-economic contexts. The Handbook also attempts to bridge the modern scholarly and political divide between archaeologists working in this highly contested region. Written by leading international scholars in the field, it focuses chronologically on the Neolithic through Persian periods - a time span during which the Levant was often in close contact with the imperial powers of Egypt, Anatolia, Assyria, Babylon, and Persia. This volume will serve as an invaluable reference work for those interested in a contextualised archaeological account of this region, beginning with the 'agricultural revolution' until the conquest of Alexander the Great that marked the end of the Persian period.

Flint Trade in the Protohistoric Levant offers an in-depth case study of the production and exchange of tabular scrapers. Crossing cultural and ecological boundaries and traded from the desert to the settled zone, these tools encompassed both ritual and quotidian functions over the course of well over the two millennia of the existence of the exchange system. Analyses focus on the changing nature of the production systems, dynamics of value in changing contexts of production and use, ritual contexts and meaning. Extending throughout the Levant, the tabular scraper complex is compared and contrasted to other contemporary production and exchange systems (ceramics, chipped stone, ground stone, copper, beads), offering a rich picture of the complexities of late prehistoric trade, transcending linear evolutionary frameworks, and simple models. Adopting a chaîne opératoire approach to the use-life of the artifacts, the artifacts can be seen to transform over time and place, made, used, recycled, and ultimately discarded, each stage in its own cultural contexts. The rise and decline of this exchange complex reflects both the geo-political history of the region and the general role of lithic industries in these societies. Focusing on late prehistoric times in the Near East, the discussions will of relevance to all researchers interested in the role of exchange in the evolution of complex economies. It offers an analysis of exchange systems based on a matrix of factors which should be of interest to all researchers interested in the evolution of trade.

Multi-Resource Nomadism, Core and Periphery, and the Rise of Economic Asymmetry

This large volume presents virtually all aspects of the Epipalaeolithic Natufian culture in a series of chapters that cover recent results of field work, analyses of materials and sites, and synthetic or interpretive overviews of various aspects of this important prehistoric culture.

This volume documents and evaluates the changing role of fibre crafts and their evolving techniques of manufacture and also their ever-increasing wider application in the lives of the inhabitants of the earliest villages of the Ancient Near East.

Biblical Zoara is located in the Ghor as-Safi, precisely at the lowest place on earth. Its environmental and cultural history is therefore unique. During two decades, an archaeological project was conducted which discovered many significant finds of human occupations spanning some 12,000 years. These have been meticulously studied and the results are now presented here in Volume I. Volume II will follow and will complete and complement Volume I.