Episodes of Ancient Settlement Rise in the Deserts of the Southwestern Levant

Abstract

Moti Mordechai Haiman

The purpose of this volume is to examine the phenomenon of the extensive rise in settlement in the desert environment of the southwestern Levant, in stark contrast to the limitations of this region. In the Negev Highlands, the focus of this research, five waves of extensive increased settlement can be identified in the past in some of the chronological frameworks of the Early Bronze Age II, the Middle Bronze Age I, the Iron Age II, the periods of the Nabatean Kingdom and Provicia Arabia and the Byzantine-Umayyad periods. A sixth wave of settlement is that of recent Bedouin, who migrated to the region from northern Arabia beginning in the sixteenth century. The study of the transition of the Bedouin from a nomadic lifestyle to sedentary settlement, which continues to this day, can contribute to an understanding of a number of aspects involved in the processes of increased settlement in the region in the past as well.

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