On the Fringe of Society: Archaeological and Ethnoarchaeological Perspectives on Pastoral and Agricultural Societies

The papers collected here are the precipitation of a seminar which was held at the Albright institute, Jerusalem, on June 3rd, 2004, bringing together a group of ethnographic and archaeological researchers working in Israel and Jordan. The seminar focused on the interaction between all aspects of pastoralism and agriculture in the southern Levant, from the Bronze Age to the present. Given the importance of ethnographic research for the understanding of social organization, a number of papers focused on recent and subrecent pastoral and agricultural societies. Other papers approached specific historical periods, such as the Early Bronze IV, the Iron Age and the Roman and Byzantine period, from the perspective of an economically flexible society, where agriculture and pastoralism (or agro-pastoralism) were readily accessible economic alternatives. In these case studies changes in subsistence patterns depended on economic circumstances rather than on a fixed ideal or lifestyle. Contents: 1) On the Fringe of Society: Archaeological and Ethnoarchaeological Perspectives on Pastoral 1 and Agricultural Societies: Introduction (Eveline J. van der Steen and Benjamin A. Saidel); 2) Nabi Musa: A Common Weli between bedouin and fellahin (Aref Abu-Rabia); 3) Doing With and Doing Without: water use patterns amongst the Qastal Fayez of Bani Sakhr (Erin Addison); 4) Bedouin Cultural Remains in the Eilat Region (Uzi Avner); 5) Runoff Terraces in the Negev Highlands during the Iron Age: Nomads Settling Down or Farmers (Living in the Desert?); 6) The Transformation of Nabataean Society: Acculturation or Self-Organization? (Tali Erickson-Gini); 7) Pastoralism and Agriculture in the Negev in the Iron Age II (Moti Haiman); 8) Nomads, Empires and Civilizations: Great and Little Traditions and the Historical Landscape of the Southern Levant (Oystein S. LaBianca and Kristen R. Witzel); 9) Nomads and Cities: Changing Conceptions (Emanuel Marx); 10) Settlement Patterns in the Late Byzantine and Early Islamic Periods in the Negev, Israel (Dov Nahlieli); 11) The Other Side of the Coin: The use of Milled Colonial Spanish Coins as Medicinal Talisman among the Bedouin and Fellahin in southern Palestine (Benjamin Adam Saidel and Abd Barakat); 12) The Economy of the Early Bronze IV Period (ca. 2200-2000): The Lithic Evidence (Jacob Vardi, Steven A. Rosen and Sorin Hermon); 13) Regional Markets and their Impact on Agriculture in Mamluk and Ottoman Transjordan (Bethany J. Walker); 14) Bet al-Malahi (Yuval Yekutieli).