Socio-Economic Aspects of an Intermediate Bronze Age Village in the Jezreel Valley

Abstract

The jezreel valley is characterised by continuity of settlement during the Intermediate Bronze Age, albeit there is a drop in the number of occupied hectares. The majority of surveyed settlement sites are small in size — up to i hectare — and are located at equal distances from each other (see Raban 1982, 1999). Sites which continued the location of the previous urban period settlements are all located in the valley floor, whereas those newly established during this period are positioned along the valley margins. In recent years excavations at some of these settlement sites as well as burial sites have greatly increased the database for this period on a regional level. For example, excavations at the settlement site of Nahal Rimmonim, 4 km east of Megiddo (Covello-Paran 2002, forthcoming) and at the cemetery of Jalame, 4 km north of Jenin. 1 However, the most extensive excavations were carried out at the site of cEin el-Hilu, the focus of this paper. 2