Note: this is a chapter from a proposed
book on the IBA people and the
Israelites of the Conquest generation.
Middle Bronze 1 Fact Sheet
By Vern Crisler
Copyright 2016
Here are some of the things we should
expect to find in the archaeological
record if the Exodus and Conquest were
anything like what the Bible says they
were. In order to limit the amount of
referencing, the following books have
been selected as representative of
archaeological thinking regarding the
MB1 period. In citing them, or other
books in the text, only the author’s name
and page number will be used and will
refer to the listed books below. Note
also that capitalization and boldface will
be used for emphasis.
1) W. F. Albright, The Archaeology of
Palestine, Maryland, 1960
2) Amnon Ben-Tor, ed., The Archaeology
of Ancient Israel, Israel, 1992
3) Kathleen M. Kenyon, Archaeology In
the Holy Land, New York, 1960
4) Thomas E. Levy, ed., The Archaeology
of Society in the Holy Land, New York,
1995
5) Amihai Mazar, Archaeology of the probably completely destroyed, for all
Land of the Bible, 10,000-586 B.C.E., the finds show that there was an absolute
New York, 1992 break, and that a NEW PEOPLE took
6) Ephraim Stern, ed., The New the place of the earlier
Encyclopedia of Archaeological inhabitants. Every town in Palestine
Excavations in the Holy Land, Israel, that has so far been investigated shows
1993
the same break.” (Kenyon, 134.)
It should be remembered that these
b) New pottery & settlement
scholars do not recognize the MB1
people as the Israelites, and their
“At most sites our evidence consists of
archaeological work reflects
the abrupt appearance of a NEW type of
conventional chronology. Despite the
pottery.” (Kenyon, 136.)
uncanny correlations between the MB1
people and the Israelites, the following
“The DIFFERENCES extend over a far
descriptions do not reflect any a priori
wider field than merely that of pottery;
theory on the part of Albright et al., that
in way of life, in architecture, in burial
the MB1 people were the Israelites.
customs, in weapons, in social
organization.” (Kenyon, 137).
a) New people in the land
“[M]any factors indicate that the rural
The Israelites weren’t recently native to
settlement system of the Intermediate
the land of Palestine, but had been living
Bronze Age was UNRELATED, from
in Egypt for two hundred years or more.
its inception, to the urban system of the
Obviously, then, their entrance into the
Early Bronze Age II-III.” (R. Gophna in
land of Palestine would have been
Ben Tor, 137.)
the introduction of a new people into the
land in an unmistakable fashion. This is
c) Invasion
exactly what we find in the Middle
Bronze 1 strata:
“On this [pottery] evidence alone,
therefore, it is safe to postulate an
“Little or none of the town inside the
INVASION of a new group.” (Kenyon,
walls [of Jericho] has survived
136.)
subsequent denudation, but it was
“Palestine thus received a great
INVASION of nomadic groups in the
last centuries of the second millennium
[sic], which completely blotted out the
preceding urban civilization of the Early
Bronze Age.” (Kenyon, 159.)
“...Palestine was at that time in the
throes of tribal UPHEAVAL, and there
was much DESTRUCTION and
abandonment of towns.” (Albright, 80.)
“[I]n contrast to the situation in inner
Syria, important urban centers of the
Syro-Lebanese coast such as Ras
Shamra (Ugarit) and Byblos were
UTTERLY DESTROYED, as were all
the Early Bronze Age towns of the Land
of Israel.” (Ben-Tor, article by Ram
Gophna, “The Intermediate Bronze
Age,” 158. Note that Gophna’s
Intermediate Bronze Age is the same
period as Albright’s MB1.)
d) Jericho & Ai; crossing the Jordan
“[T]he LATEST of the Early Bronze
Age town walls at JERICHO was
destroyed by FIRE. With this
destruction, town life there came to an
end for a space of several hundred [sic]
years. Newcomers, who were
presumably the authors of the
destruction, settled in considerable
numbers in the area, but they did not
build for themselves a walled
town. They spread all down the slopes
of the mound and over a considerable
part of the adjoining hillside [Gilgal?-
VC]....” (Kenyon, 137.)
“An important site in the hill country...is
that of ‘Ai, identified in the imposing
remains known as Et Tell covering a hill
some 10 miles north of Jerusalem....The
site is of peculiar interest, since,
according to the biblical account, ‘Ai
was captured by Joshua after the fall of
Jericho. The excavations showed,
however, that the site was
ABANDONED at the end of the Early
Bronze Age, and was not reoccupied
until well on in the Iron Age.” (Kenyon,
115.)
“These relics of the Middle Bronze I
people seem to indicate a fresh
migration into the town of a nomadic
people who brought with them an
entirely new tradition in pottery forms
and new customs in burial practices.
They may have come into Palestine
from the desert at the CROSSING OF
THE JORDAN near JERICHO and
may then have pushed on to settle
eventually at such places as Gibeon, Tell
el-Ajjul, and Lachish, where tombs of
this distinctive type have been found.”
(James B. Pritchard, Gibeon: Where the
Sun Stood Still, New Jersey, 1962, 153.)
e) Nomadic (or semi-nomadic)
“The newcomers therefore were
essentially NOMADS. They destroyed
existing towns, but did not create their
own [sic]. It is perhaps one of the
clearest instances in the long history
of Palestine of the temporary triumph of
the Desert over the Sown.” (Kenyon,
137.)
“In view of the general character of
these newcomers to Palestine, especially
their lack of interest in town life, the
habit of the Pottery group in burying
collections of disarticulated bones,
which may suggest a NOMADIC
background....” (Kenyon, 141.)
“[T]he individual and secondary burials
conform with the nature of a
SEMINOMADIC society in which the
dead are brought to central cemeteries
after primary burial elsewhere.” (Mazar,
159.)
“Another explanation offered for the
‘orphan’ cemeteries (those with no
adjacent habitation site) views at least
some of them as evidence of central
burial grounds for SEMI-NOMADIC
population groups that have left no
architectural remains....” (Ben-Tor,
article by Ram Gophna, 128.)
“Nelson Glueck’s explorations in
Transjordan yield the same picture, that
of a rapidly declining density of
settlement, followed before the end of
the twentieth [sic] century B.C. by
virtually complete abandonment of the
country to NOMADS.” (Albright, 82.)
“As a result of these surveys,
Finkelstein...agrees by an large with my
view that the Negev EB IV sites were
indeed occupied by SEMI-NOMADIC
pastoralists who migrated seasonally up
into the Central Hills, camped there, and
buried their dead in the many large
cemeteries known in that region.”
(Levy, article by Dever, 282.)
“The evidence of the skeletal material
and the poor offerings [at Jebel
Qa’Aqir] suggest these were the remains
of SEMINOMADIC groups of people,
probably pastoralists who roamed a
seasonal circuit and carried their dead
with them for burial at an ancestral
burying ground. The evidence of the
Jericho tombs and many other Middle
Bronze I cemeteries in the Hebron Hills
points to the same conclusions.” (Stern,
2:666; Article by William Dever on
Jebel Qa-Aqir.)
f) Warriors
“The whole burial custom [of the
Dagger-type tomb] is simple and
austere, and the prominence given to
weapons suggests a group of
WARRIORS.” (Kenyon, 139.)
“In view of the general character of
these newcomers to Palestine..., and the
emphasis on weapons in the case of the
Dagger group, which suggests that they
were WARRIORS....” (Kenyon, 141.)
g) Tribal or familial
“Though the practice of single burials is
so characteristic, the burial customs in
other respects show many variations,
and these variations are probably to be
explained as evidence of a TRIBAL
organisation, each group maintaining its
own burial customs.” (Kenyon, 137.)
“[T]he most satisfactory explanation
seems to be that the difference in burial
customs is due to a TRIBAL
organization.” (Kenyon, 141.)
“The concentrated cemeteries may
represent tribal burial grounds....The
very noticeable differences between the
possessions and burial practices of all
the groups described shows that though
there were broad similarities there was
no uniform culture in any way
comparable with that of the preceding
and succeeding periods, and that the
groups remained separated and
TRIBAL in organization.” (Kenyon,
158.)
The following are the tribes that Kenyon
was able to discern:
1) Dagger-type
2) Pottery-type
3) Square
4) Shaft-type
5) Outsize-type
6) Bead-type
William Dever’s archaeological
investigations of this period have
increased the number of discernible
tribes to seven. “Following repeated
typological analyses, Dever proposed a
regional subdivision of the pottery
distributions on both sides of the Jordan
River into SEVEN groups....” (Ben-Tor,
article by Ram Gophna, 144.)
“Actually, one wonders if further
exploration of the necropolis may add
new groups, as it seems to be the case
judging from some tomb assemblages
from Jericho studied in recent years.
For instance, Gaetano Palumbo
identified at least 13 TOMB GROUPS,
comparing burials, sex, social status and
tomb fittings. He isolated the indicators
of a stratified society, as well as the
coexistence of different “ethnic” (I
would prefer “social”) groups….”
(Nigro, L, “Tel es-Sultan in the Early
Bronze Age IV (2300-2000 BC).
Settlement vs Necropolis - A
Stratigraphic Periodization”, in
Contributi e Materiali de Archeologia
Orientale IX, 2003, p. 136.)
“This scholar [Palumbo] also proposed
the identification of some NEW
CERAMIC FAMILIES in
Transjordan, highlighting the strong
regionalism of the EBIV culture….”
(Nigro, L, CMAO IX, 2003, footnote 83,
p. 136.
Note: See our paper "Wilderness and
Conquest" to see how about 12 or 13
different tribal groups may have been
identified for the MB1 people (Nigro’s
EBIV).
“The EB IV/MB I Negev society
appears to have been egalitarian and
TRIBAL....” (Mazar, 158.)
“...Palestine was at that time in the
throes of TRIBAL upheaval....”
(Albright, 80.)
“Based on the lack of any monumental
architecture or elite residences, as well
as on the typical clustering of several
round sleeping-shelters around a
common courtyard, I concluded that at
Be’er Resisim we are no doubt dealing
with the partly-seasonal encampment of
a small extended family or clan (a
TRIBAL descent group or ‘section’, in
the ethnographic literature)....” (Levy,
article by William G. Dever, “Social
Structure in the Early Bronze IV Period
in Palestine,” 289. Dever’s EB4 is the
same period as Albright’s MB1.)
“The ‘TRIBAL’ model, however, is
reasonably well suited to most
of Palestine in EV IV—certainly to the
Negev-Central Hills area, and probably
also to the Transjordanian plateau.
Evidence supporting such a ‘tribal”
model is well documented and would
include...the likelihood that
recognizable regional assemblages in
the material culture reflect mobile,
overlapping TRIBAL groups....” (Levy,
article by Dever, 294.)
“The distinct differences between the
cemeteries in the cutting of the tombs
and in the grave goods...are further
evidence of TRIBAL groups, some
seminomadic.” (Stern, 2:666, article by
William Dever on MB1 Jebel Qa’Aqir.)
h) No lasting conquest of Transjordan
(Edom, Moab) or Megiddo. This is
shown via pottery overlap or by
settlement gaps. The Israelites could not
drive out some Canaanites but put them
under tribute; see especially, Joshua
17:11-12.
“There remains the problem of
Megiddo. As the material is published,
there appears to be an OVERLAP, with
pottery of the Early Bronze, E.B.-M.B.,
and Middle Bronze [MB2a] appearing
SIDE BY SIDE in Strata XVI, XV,
XIV, and XIII. But I have shown [sic]
that this is due to intrusive burials and
other disturbances.” (Kenyon, 155.)
“The LACK OF CORRELATION
between the settlement history of the
Land of Israel and of the Transjordanian
plateau (as revealed by the
archaeological evidence) in the
Intermediate Bronze Age poses difficult
questions to the archaeologist, as it
implies that the settlement history of the
late third millennium [sic] varied from
one REGION to the next.” (Ben Tor,
article by Ram Gophna, 138.)
“It is scarcely accidental that this [MB1]
phase SCARCELY appears at all in the
stratigraphic picture of Megiddo and
Beth-shan....” (Albright, 82.)
i) Different culture, customs,
miscellaneous (use of twelve)
“The DIFFERENCES extend over a
far wider field than merely that of
pottery; in way of life, in architecture, in
burial customs, in weapons, in social
organisation. These differences are
illustrated particularly clearly at
Jericho.” (Kenyon, 137.)
“It is evident, therefore, that the
settlement pattern in western Palestine
during EB IV/MB I was considerably
DIFFERENT from that of the Early
Bronze Age.” (Mazar, 154.)
“In 1980 it was possible to categorize
most, if not all, the known EB IV
settlement sites as reflecting a ‘pastoral
nomadic’ society. We had, after all, no
true towns, much less cities; very few
sizeable villages, most of them not
necessarily fully sedentary or sedentary
year-round; scarcely a single published
house of any kind, apart from huts and
sleeping-shelters; no monumental
architecture whatsoever....The
CONTRAST with the highly developed
urban economy and society of Palestine
in Early Bronze II-III...could hardly be
more striking.” (Levy, article by Dever,
289.)
“Virtually all the EB IV sites [in the
central hill country] are small, unwalled
villages—many of them one-period
sites. As Finkelstein observes quite
correctly, both the EB IV settlement
type and pattern of distribution mark a
‘DRASTIC CHANGE’ from the urban
Early and Middle Bronze Age
periods....” (Levy, article by Dever,
292.)
“The bamah [high place] is merely a
rock cliff, jutting out above the
Yeroham Basin. At the top of the cliff is
a leveled area with TWELVE cupmarks
of various sizes.” (Stern, 4:1507; Article
by Moshe Kochavi on Mount
Yeroham.”)
“SIX large stone cairns, strung out along
the crest of the ridge, are located AT
EACH END [6+6=12 --Vern] of the
site.” (Stern, 2:666, article by William
Dever on MB1 Jebel Qa’Aqir.)
“Near an inhabited site of the BAC
[bronze age complex] period at the foot
of the mountain, site HK 52, a group of
TWELVE PILLARS were found in
front of a stone platform. When this
monument was discovered, in 1983, it
brought to our minds, for the first time,
the hypothesis that there might be some
connection between Har Karkom and
the mythical Mount Sinai of the
Bible. This site recalls the passage
referring to Moses in Exodus 24:4: “He
rose early in the morning and built an
altar at the foot of the mountain, and put
up TWELVE PILLARS, for the twelve
tribes of Israel.” Here an altar and
twelve pillars are at the foot of the
mountain, near the remains of a Bronze
Age camping site. We do not know
whether this place was seen, interpreted,
and described by ancient travellers, and
obviously it cannot be affirmed that
Moses built it [sic], or even that such a
man as Moses ever existed. But the
query arose, concerning the possible
relation between this site and the
biblical description.” From Dr. Anati’s
Hark Karkom website,
http://www.harkarkom.com/
Har Karkom is similar to Qa’Aqir in its
use of two sixes to make a 12:
“In the wadi west of the mountain are
numerous structural remains from the
Early Bronze and beginning of the
Middle Bronze ages [i.e., MB1 – Vern].
The remains largely comprise extensive
encampments, including more than five
hundred foundations of huts and other
structures. A structure with a foundation
for a square bamah was found at the
edge of one of the slopes. Next to the
bamah were a DOZEN massebot
[standing stone] (0.8 - 1.2m high)
arranged in TWO ROWS OF SIX
each.” (Stern, 4: 850.)
j) Religious people
“[I]t may be suggested that in their care
for the disposition of the dead the E.B.-
M.B. people do everywhere show
considerable concern for things
SPIRITUAL.” (Kenyon, 157.)
“Most animals were IMMATURE (75
percent), with some (25 percent) young
adults but no adults present. All the
carcasses were missing the cranium and
most of the bones were in partial
articulation―both features indicating a
deliberate SACRIFICE of an animal
for interment with human remains.”
(Levy, article by Dever, 287.)
k) Miracle in the Negev
There were large Negev settlements
despite desert conditions in the area.
The rest of the country was fertile and
yet the MB1 people chose to live in a
dry, desert environment. During their
wandering phase, the Israelites lived on
manna, so the enigma or paradox of
MB1 settlement patterns might be better
described as miraculous.
“The settlement of the central Negev in
the EB IV/MB I period is
ENIGMATIC. This area was almost
uninhabited at times when an urban
culture flourished in the rest of the
country (such as in EB III, in the Middle
and Late Bronze periods); but the region
was heavily settled in EB IV/MB I—
when in the fertile areas of Palestine
[i.e., not the Negev – Vern] there
probably was no lack of land and
pasture, and population was relatively
sparse. This PARADOX is sharpened
by paleoclimatic studies showing that
after the end of EB III DRIER
CONDITIONS prevailed. Current
research indicates that the number of
settlements and their size had been
LARGER than we previously believed,
but no satisfactory explanation of the
phenomenon has been suggested.”
(Mazar, 158.)
l) Tombs
Many Israelites took the bones of their
ancestors to the Promised Land; cf.,
Joseph:
“The vast EB IV/MB I cemeteries are a
primary source in the study of this
period. Three major types of burials are
known, each typical of a different
region: shaft tombs, known throughout
western Palestine; megalithic dolmens
covered by tumuli, known in the Golan
Heights and Upper Galilee; and built-up
tumuli, typical of the central
Negev....[T]he individual and secondary
BURIALS conform with the nature of a
SEMINOMADIC society....” (Mazar,
159.)
“Variations between cemeteries in close
proximity may indicate either a
chronological sequence or the
possibility that related TRIBAL groups
with somewhat different BURIAL
customs lives side by side.” (Mazar,
161.)
“Tumuli fields are found on summits of
mountain ridges in the Negev and often
are associated with settlement sites.
High, overhanging locations were
deliberately chosen for these TOMBS,
so that many tumuli still protrude into
the skyline in the central Negev. Tumuli
are found also inside settlement sites,
between houses. Many were found
EMPTY, as if they had been used for
primary burial and the bones had later
been removed for SECONDARY
INTERMENT elsewhere.” (Mazar,
161.)
“The megalithic dolmens found in the
Golan and Galilee are tablelike
structures composed of two or more
vertical basalt blocks roofed by large
rock slabs. A heap of stones usually
covered the dolmens, creating a
tumulus. Such structures are known in
Transjordan from the Chalcolithic
period, but in the Golan and Galilee they
definitely date to EB IV/MB I. Dolmens
generally served for the SECONDARY
INTERMENT of one person. These
dolmens recall similar megalithic burial
structures known throughout Europe in
the Bronze Age, but the significance of
this resemblance is still unclear.”
(Mazar, 161.)
m) Skilled metallurgy (presence of
Kenites)
“Narrow elongated copper ingots found
at several sites in the south served
perhaps as raw material for casting
metal objects. These ingots, as well as
the numerous well-made metal weapons
and pins, show that specialized,
SKILLED METALSMITHS operated
in the country during this period.”
(Mazar, 166)
“The abundance of metal artifacts is an
outstanding characteristic of
Intermediate Bronze Age culture in the
land of Israel. Astonishing quantities of
metal artifacts continue to be
found....The comparative abundance of
metal artifacts in the Intermediate
Bronze Age and the ADVANCED
technology evidenced in their
manufacture are especially remarkable
in view of the wretched appearance of
most sites of this period.” (Ben-Tor,
article by Ram Gophna, 147.)
“The fenestrated axes...[of the
Intermediate Bronze Age] may be
classed among the MOST COMPLEX
metal artifacts ever designed in the
ancient Near East.” (Ben-Tor, article by
Ram Gophna, 151.)
“This bold hypothesis [of an invasion]
was based on a similarity between the
culture of the Indo-European nomads
and the nomadic culture of the
Intermediate Bronze Age in the Land of
Israel, a similarity that extends even to
such details as shaft and tumulus tombs
and ADVANCED METALLURGY.”
(Ben Tor, article by Ram Gophna, 157.)
n) Egyptian indicia or pottery, & Red
Sea shells
“Recently, however, Egyptian pottery
has been identified among the finds of
the North Sinai survey....The Egyptian
sherds were FOUND TOGETHER
with pottery typical of the Intermediate
Bronze Age in Israel at 45 campsites of
the period discovered during the
survey. The Egyptian sherds belong to
a type of ware common in Egypt during
the latter part of the Old Kingdom and
the beginning of the First Intermediate
Period....” (Ben-Tor, article by Ram
Gophna, 127-29.)
“Significantly, the ceramic repertoire
[of EB IV, or Albright’s MB1] also
included late variants of the
EGYPTIAN ‘Maidum ware’ which is
diagnostic of the late Old Kingdom-
early First Intermediate Period.” (Stern,
4:1388; Article by Avraham Negev on
Sinai.)
“The ceramics of the Northern Sinai
sites contain one unusual group of
EGYPTIAN earthernware which
comprises 3% (85 items) of the entire
ceramic sampling. About fifty sites are
represented by bowls and flat or deep
pots with a low lip, either smooth,
processed, furrowed or doubled, and a
sharp angle connecting the lip to a
rounded body. The vessel is made of
typical Nile silt with a gray core rich in
silt, sand and organic matter....A
petrographic examination pointed to a
similarity in the structure to ceramics
from the Maidum Ware family that were
found in MENDES in the Northern
delta and which confirmed the
hypothesis about the EGYPTIAN
origin of the Northern Sinai
vessels....The ceramic repertoire of the
North Sinai sites belongs to the
Egyptian tools of the Maidum Ware
family, which are typical of Upper and
Middle Egypt sites of the 4th and 6th
dynasties and of the beginning of the
First Middle [Intermediate] period. A
comparison of the findings of North
Sinai with those of Egypt proper clearly
demonstrates that the first belong to a
later variant of the Maidum Ware
family. Thus, for example, similar tools
were documented in excavations
conducted by Yunker and Reisner at the
important cemetery in Giza with
findings from the end of the 6th dynasty
(the reign of Pepi II) as well as imported
Canaanite tools from the Third Early
Bronze period such as cracked jars and
metal flasks.” (Oren, E. D. and Y.
Yekuteli, "North Sinai During the MB I
Period - Pastoral Nomadism and
Sedentary Settlement" Eretz-Israel 21,
1990)
Mendes was one of Egypt’s largest
cities in northern Egypt with
excavations ongoing at its
archaeological location Tel er-Rub’a.
“Shells from the RED SEA have been
discovered in habitation sites and
tombs.” (Ben-Tor, article by Ram
Gophna, 153.)
“Small finds were scarce, but the fact
that so little was previously known of
the Middle Bronze I domestic
assemblage makes many of the objects
unique. Among them were carved and
polished shell pendants made from RED
SEA conch shells brought from a
distance of more than 150 km (93 mi.),
a chalk geometric stamp, and an
EGYPTIAN style limestone gaming
board.” (Stern, 1:159; Article by
William Dever on Be’er Resisim.)
“A curiosity is a fragment of a RED
SEA shark’s jaw and teeth.” (Stern
1:159; Article by William Dever on
Be’er Resisim.)
“Scattered on the floor made of small
stones and beaten earth were typical
MBI potsherds. Beneath this floor-
level, on the natural rock, we found
sherds from the Early Bronze Age II in
a thin ash layer, again a critical
finding. We found rooms like this, with
minor variations, over and over
again. Between the units were open-air
enclosures used principally for food
preparation, as we know from the
remains of cooking pots and animal
bones, mostly sheep and goat. Apart
from pottery, the other artifacts included
grinding stones (sometimes of Aswan
granite), fragments of ostrich egg shells,
RED SEA CONCHES (and the
ornaments fashioned from them),
‘Canaanean’ blades and innumerable
flint chips, and (in one building) a hoard
of two copper ingots and a copper
dagger. Smaller individual buildings as
well as cairns (stone piles) were
excavated in the area.” (Rudolph
Cohen, “The Mysterious MBI People,”
in Biblical Archaeology Review,
Jul/Aug, 1983, Biblical Archaeology
Society. Note that Cohen believes the
MB1 people may have been related to
the Israelites.)
“The North Sinai Expedition explored
more than 280 settlement sites between
the Suez canal and Raphia, which were
represented by identifiable Early Bronze
IV-Middle Bronze I [Albright’s MB1]
artifacts. Most of the sites are located in
northeastern Sinai, although a few were
identified south of the Bardawil lagoon
to the fringe of the EASTERN NILE
DELTA.” (“Sinai”, in Stern, 4:1388)
If the MB1 people are the Israelites, the
MB1 sites that start near the Suez canal
(i.e., the Red Sea) would go up to Mt.
Karkom, then to the central Negev and
Kadesh-barnea. After the conquest, the
second phase of MB1 would appear in
various parts of the country, including in
the Raphia region (near the Philistine
coast). This may give us a clue as to
where the Israelites crossed the Red Sea,
i.e., near the Suez Canal rather than the
Bitter Lakes. See our essay “Crossing
the Red Sea” for more information on
the likely route of the Israelies from
Egypt.
o) Regionalism in settlement patterns
(tribes settling down in different
geographic regions)
“...virtually every commentator...still
agrees with my original insistence on
the distinctiveness and significance of
‘REGIONALISM’ in EB IV [i.e.,
MB1] Palestine overall.” (Levy, article
by Dever, 291.)
“Yet the evidence must be carefully
assessed in each case, so as not to
obscure what are still clearly
REGIONAL assemblages with their
own peculiarities, while at the same time
placing these local groups in the larger
cultural complex of Palestinian EB IV.”
(Levy, article by Dever, 293.)
“Evidence supporting such a ‘tribal’
model is well documented and would
include: a dispersed pattern of non-
urban settlement; a largely pastoral
nomadic subsistence system and social
structure (as at Be’er Resisim); and the
likelihood that recognizable
REGIONAL assemblages in the
material culture reflect mobile,
overlapping tribal groups as at Jericho,
Jebel Qa’aqir, and many other sites.”
(Levy, article by Dever, 295.)
“Whatever model we may finally adopt
for Palestinian EB IV, the overall
phenomenon upon which all
commentators must agree is that of
‘regionalism’, long recognized by most
scholars. No other period in the
archaeological history of Palestine
exhibits such strongly marked,
predictable REGIONAL assemblages
or ‘families’.” (Levy, article by Dever,
295.)
“This scholar [Palumbo] also proposed
the identification of some new ceramic
families in Transjordan, highlighting the
STRONG REGIONALISM of the
EBIV culture….” (Nigro, L, “Tel es-
Sultan in the Early Bronze Age IV
(2300-2000 BC). Settlement vs
Necropolis - A Stratigraphic
Periodization”, in Contributi e Materiali
de Archeologia Orientale IX, 2003, p.
136.)
p) Manna provided as food rather
than agriculture products
“Several grasses suitable for grazing
were present, but despite the discovery
of grinding stones in the houses FEW
GRAINS were in evidence.” (Stern,
1:159, article by Dever on Be’er
Resisim.)
q) Distinctive diet (little if any pig
bones)
“The animal bones, almost all from a
few communal outdoor cooking areas,
consist of more than 90 percent SHEEP
and GOAT, the latter predominant and
of the small black variety herded by
modern Negev Bedouin. Also
represented were desert gazelle, hares,
and birds, along with a few cattle (bos),
donkey, and even CAMEL
bones.” (Stern, 1:159, article by Dever often associated with urban
on Be’er Resisim.) populations.” (Stern, 2:666, article by
William Dever on Jebel Qa’Aqir.)
“Remains from the Middle Bronze Age
I settlement [of Sha’ar Ha-Golan] were
exposed....Analysis of the animal bones
revealed that the inhabitants raised
SHEEP but also hunted.” (Stern,
4:1343, article by Emanuel Eisenberg
on Sha’ar Ha-Golan.)
“Between the units were open-air
enclosures used principally for food
preparation, as we know from the
remains of cooking pots and animal
bones, mostly SHEEP and GOAT.”
(Rudolph Cohen, “The Mysterious MBI
People,” in Biblical Archaeology
Review, Jul/Aug, 1983, Biblical
Archaeology Society.)
r) Rarity of diseases; “none of these
diseases”
"The typical tomb [of MB1 Jebel
Qa’Aqir] contained from two to four
human burials and occasionally the
headless carcass of a sheep or a goat. In
every case the burials were secondary,
and the bones, even those of the animals,
were disarticulated and completely
disarrayed....This population group was
remarkably FREE of the DISEASES