Exploring Maritime Engagement in the Early Bronze Age Levant: A Space/Time Approach

Abstract

Abstract This article brings to light small-scale and everyday maritime activities through the consolidation of Early Bronze Age maritime-related material culture from the coastal Levant. By doing so, the research provides an alternative perspective on Early Bronze Age maritime activities, away from broad accounts of connectivity that neglect small-scale rhythms of coastal life. The application of temporally imbued spatial analyses serves to contextualize the material record for maritime activities in a wider sphere of coastal dynamics and interaction. Through an analysis of the whole Levantine coast, this article transcends the separation between the southern, central, and northern Levant. In this way, the sea acts as a unifying agent, a common denominator. By shifting perspectives toward the sea, emphasis is placed on the importance of maritime activities without which our understanding of Early Bronze Age coastal communities and broader Early Bronze Age developments, such as social complexity, is limited.