Daily Life, Materiality, and Complexity in Early Urban Communities of the Southern Levant

Papers in Honor of Walter E. Rast and R. Thomas Schaub

Meredith S. Chesson

• Publisher: Eisenbrauns
• Year: 2011
• Print ISBN: 9781575062174
• eBook ISBN: 9781575066554
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Ancient History
• Index: History

This volume emerges from a session honoring Walter E. Rast and R. Thomas Schaub held during the 2003 Annual Meeting of the American Schools of Oriental Research in Atlanta, Georgia and includes expanded versions of many of the papers presented in that session. By gathering in Atlanta, and by participating in this volume, the contributors honor the careers and scholarly passions of Walt and Tom, whose work in southern Levantine archaeology began in the 1960s when they were young scholars working with Paul Lapp. The breadth and depth of experience of the contributors' disciplinary and theoretical interests reflects the shared influence of and esteem for Walt's and Tom's own scholarly gifts as archaeologists, mentors, collaborators, and intellectual innovators. The primary disciplinary "homes" for the scholars contributing to this volume encompass a broad range of methods and approaches to learning about the past: anthropological archaeology, Near Eastern archaeology, biblical archaeology, and physical anthropology. Their institutional "homes" include universities and institutes in Canada, Denmark, Israel, Jordan, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States; their theoretical "homes" include the broadly-conceived archaeological frameworks of culture-history, processualism, and post-processualism. Collectively, these papers reflect the enormous breadth of influence that Tom's and Walt's scholarly contributions have made to EB studies.

Walt and Tom shared a gift that many have benefited from: gentle listening, questioning, and pushing for more sophisticated analyses of Early Bronze Age life. Their eager engagement of younger scholars, as well as their involvement with their peers, arises from their dedication to listening well, devoting time to others' ideas and perspectives, and a generous willingness to give freely to others out of the rich depths of their lifelong scholarly pursuits and profound understanding of the Early Bronze Age, archaeology, and life in general. Many of the contributors to this volume have gained greater understanding because of Walt's and Tom's gift of listening, keen insights, and bottomless enthusiasm for learning more about the past and the present in the southern Levant. The 18 essays presented here are to honor both men for these gifts both to the discipline of archaeology and to so many of us engaged in that intellectual endeavor.

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Front Matter
• Chapter 1: Beyond the City Walls: Life Activities Outside the City Gates in the Early Bronze Age in Jordan
• Chapter 2: The Early Bronze Age Societies of Tell Abu al-Kharaz, Central Jordan Valley
• Chapter 3: Life In the City: Tel Bet Yerah in the Early Bronze Age
• Chapter 4: The Domestic Unit at Tall Iktanu: Its Derivations and Functions
• Chapter 5: Agriculture and Religion at Bâb Edh-Dhrâ and Numeira during the Early Bronze Age
• Chapter 6: Religion and Cult in Early Bronze IV Palestine
• Chapter 7: The EB IA People of Bâb Edh-Dhrâ, Jordan
• Chapter 8: From Maadi to the Plain of Antioch: What Can Basalt Spindle Whorls Tell Us about Overland Trade in the Early Bronze I Levant?
• Chapter 9: Jordanian-Egyptian Interaction during the Third Millennium B.C.E. as Evidenced by the Abydos Ware
• Chapter 10: The Late Chalcolithic-Early Bronze Age Transition in the Southern Levant and Some Pottery from Hujeyrat al-Ghuzlan
• Chapter 11: Talking Trash: Observations on the Abandonment of Broadroom Structures in Southern Sinai during the Early Bronze Age II
• Chapter 12: Nawamis, Shells, and Early Bronze Age Pastoralism
• Chapter 13: Transitions in Macehead Manufacture in the Ancient Levant: A Case Study from Nahal Tillah (Tel Halif Terrace), Israel
• Chapter 14: The Cylinder Seal Impressions from Numeira
• Chapter 15: Calcite: A Hard Habit to Break
• Chapter 16: Blood from Stone: Can We Really Do Ethnicity from Flint?
• Chapter 17: Of Pots and Towns: Old and New Perspectives on EB I of the Southern Levant
• Chapter 18: Community Life, Household Production, and the Ceramic Industry at EBA Tall al-Umayri