Rural Responses to Early Urbanism: Bronze Age Household and Village Economy at Tell el-Hayyat, Jordan

Abstract

Temporal and spatial patterns of faunal, floral, and ceramic deposition reveal several aspects of household and village economy at Tell el-Hayyat, Jordan. Hayyat was a modest farming hamlet (0.5 ha) with 100–150 inhabitants, which was occupied in six major phases between ca. 2100 and 1500 B.C. This timespan covers the entire Middle Bronze Age, commonly considered the heyday of early urbanism in the southern Levant. Ethnographic and ancient historical exa1nples of agrarian villages in SW Asia include settlements administered by crown or temple estates, held as private property by elite families or absentee landlords, or owned collectively by resident villagers. Data drawn from Tell el-Hayyat Phases 5,4, and 3 (dating to Middle Bronze IIA and IIB) suggest some changes toward a commercially-oriented rural economy, as might be anticipated for villages held by institutional or private estates. Most of the Hayyat data, however, suggest trends toward enhanced economic autonomy, as expected for a collectively owned community. Tell el-Hayyat exemplifies the economic resilience of Levantine villages in the face of developing Middle Bronze Age town and city life.