Page 12 - Facloner_Fall_2019

Early Bronze IV Village Life in the Jordan Valley
well as exposures of domestic structures in lower strata (Richard et al. 2010).
While substantial evidence has been recovered from pastoral encampments, excavations at stratified Early Bronze IV farming villages like Tell Abu en-Ni‘aj remain limited. In the context of the growing evidence for Early Bronze IV sedentary communities summarised above, this volume reports on the excavation and interpretation of seven stratified phases of extensive village remains at Tell Abu en-Ni‘aj, as well as the excavation of the nearby hilltop Early Bronze IV site of Dhahrat Umm al-Marar. Tell Abu en-Ni‘aj provides an unprecedented, deeply stratified record with which to study how Canaanite village farmers coped with the abandonment of Bronze Age towns, perhaps the most dramatic example of region- wide urban collapse in the ancient Near East.
6