Other highly complex societies left their mark on the landscape not in the form of urban settlements but rather in the shape of ceremonial and religious monuments. The largest empire of all time, the Mongolian Empire, was established by small groups of nomadic, tent dwellers. History, however, has numerous opposing examples. The implication, therefore, of the abandonment of settlements and an archaeological record void of large urban settlements and monumental public structures, is the collapse of a cultural system and a socio-political system of low order. The traditional approach to understanding social complexity and level of governmental organization in archaeology is based primarily on the magnitude of settlements and the architectural achievements reflected in monumental structures. This new evidence supports a growing body of recent criticism, stemming from new discoveries and approaches, that calls for rethinking our views of the Levantine IB “Dark Ages”. This dolmen revealed evidence of a hierarchical, non-urban governmental system. Excavation in the Shamir Dolmen Field, located on the western foothills of the Golan Heights, was carried out following the 2012 discovery of engravings in one of the largest dolmens recorded in the Levant. Among their multiple and varied burial praxes, the use of megalithic dolmens stands out as the most prominent, yet poorly understood, feature of this enigmatic period. Almost no settlement of the period can be described as an urban center and, remarkably, there is no evidence recorded for monumental architecture.Īgainst this background of pastoral nomadism, the primary evidence left behind by Levantine IB communities is its vast and impressive burial grounds, scattered across the Southern Levant. No evidence for strong central administration has been recovered. The economy is thought to have been based on herding. The accepted interpretation of the archaeological record suggests that the socio-economic structure of the period declined into a primarily nomadic, tribal society inhabiting small rural villages. 2350 until 2000 BCE, when it was replaced by the urban renaissance of the Middle Bronze Age. The complex socio-economic strategies, based on large-scale agriculture, industry, and trade, were replaced by what Dever named “small-scale mixed agro-pastoralism.” This Dark Ages (also termed Early Bronze IV and Middle Bronze I) of pastoral nomadism lasted from ca. The Intermediate Bronze Age (IB) of the Southern Levant is known as the “Dark Ages.” The large cities of the Early Bronze Age, which were the region’s first urban settlements, collapsed and were abandoned.
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