Complexity and Diversity in the Southern Levant during the Third Millenium BC

The Evidence of Khirbet Kerak Ware

Authors

  • Graham Philip University of Durham

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1558/jmea.v12i1.26

Keywords:

Khirbet Kerak Ware, coastal networks

Abstract

Archaeologists have generally viewed the appearance of Khirbet Kerak Ware (KKW) in the southern Levant in the early 3rd millennium BC in terms of a movement into the area of population groups of east Anatolian origin. However, there are serious theoretical and empirical objections to this position. It is suggested that by concentrating upon KKW as a macro-level phenomenon, scholars have neglected to consider the existence of significant inter-community distinctions in the scale and manner in which KKW was employed. This paper offers an alternative view which sees KKW as a material resource, knowledge of which was linked to participation in previously existing coastal networks of communication, the adoption or rejection of which was linked to socio-economic conditionals prevailing in specific areas of the southern Levant.

Author Biography

  • Graham Philip, University of Durham
    Graham Philip is Lecturer in Archaeology at the University of Durham, and has a particular interest in the later prehistory and Bronze Ages of the Middle East. He has worked extensively in Jordan, Syria, Iraq and Turkey, and was Assistant Director of the British Institute at Amman for Archaeology and History from 1989-92. Dr Philip co-directed excavations at the Chalcolithic-EBA site of Tell esh-Shuna in Jordan and is currently directing the Homs Regional Survey which studies settlement and environment in the Orontes Valley area of Syria. Current research interests include early metallurgy in western Asia, the organizational characteristics of small-scale complex societies, and the use of satellite imagery for archaeological prospection. Forthcoming publications include a chapter on EBA I-III in 'The Archaeology of Jordan' and a co-edited volume 'Ceramics and Change in the Early Bronze Age of the Southern Levant'.

Downloads

Published

1999-10-01

Issue

Vol. 12 No. 1 (1999)

Section

Articles

License

© Equinox Publishing Ltd.

For information regarding our Open Access policy, click here.

How to Cite

Philip, G. (1999). Complexity and Diversity in the Southern Levant during the Third Millenium BC: The Evidence of Khirbet Kerak Ware. Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology, 12(1), 26-57. https://doi.org/10.1558/jmea.v12i1.26