Ceramics and Change in the Early Bronze Age of the Southern Levant.

Ceramics and Change in the Early Bronze Age of the Southern Levant. GRAHAM PHILIP & DOUGLAS BAIRD (ed.). Ceramics and change in theEarly Bronze Age Bronze Age,period in the development of technology when metals were first used regularly in the manufacture of tools and weapons. Pure copper and bronze, an alloy of copper and tin, were used indiscriminately at first; this early period is sometimes called the of the southern Levant Levant(ləvănt`)[Ital.,=east], collective name for the countries of the eastern shore of the Mediterranean from Egypt to, and including, Turkey. . xi+427 pages, 144 figures, 28tables. 2000. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press; 1-84127-1357 hardback60 [pounds sterling] & $120. Graham Philip & Douglas Baird have compiled articles focused onrecent studies of ceramics from the 5th/4th millennium BC to the late3rd millennium BC in one of the main corridors of social exchange in theancient Near East. This book is the outgrowth of a workshop held atDurham in 1995, and includes contributors from the southern Levant,North America, Europe and other countries. This is a large volume, with23 chapters and 32 authors, arranged chronologically and preceded by anintroduction by the editors. The size precludes fair coverage to eachchapter and thus only a few chapters and common trends will bementioned. As stated in the editors' introduction, the goals of theworkshop were `to facilitate ceramic recognition, and encouragediscussion of ... definition and terminology' (p. 1). Contributorswere asked to summarize their data in advance of final publications, andto make explicit the recording system involved. Ultimately, the goal ofthe workshop was to confront problems met in comparative analyses ofceramic assemblages from the southern Levant. In their introduction, Philip & Baird critically reviewdifferent problems faced by analysts of southern Early Bronze Age (EBA EBA Eisenbahn-Bundesamt (German)EBA Euro Banking AssociationEBA Emergency Brake AssistanceEBA Enterprise Bargaining Agreement (Australia)EBA Elite Beat Agents (video game))ceramics, including terminology, assumptions behind diagnostic types,absence of independent chronological controls and the rarity of fullyquantified results. Many of these difficulties are perpetuated by theself-replicating system of pottery field recording using classic types,a deeply embedded system difficult to change. This volume is anambitious effort to overcome these and other impediments to the inter-and intra-regional comparative analyses of ceramic assemblages necessaryto fostering fresh insight on chronological implications and changingsystems of ceramic production, use and distribution. Dessel & Joffe provide a succinct history of ceramic analysesin the southern Levant, arguing that the EBA has suffered from long tiesto Biblically-derived reconstructions, and that ceramic typology typology/ty��pol��o��gy/ (ti-pol��ah-je) the study of types; the science of classifying, as bacteria according to type. typologythe study of types; the science of classifying, as bacteria according to type. hasbecome the dominant form of archaeological data. They effectivelyundermine two untested premises hampering EBA analyses: first, thatceramic typology offers greater chronological precision than radiocarbonand, second, that the reliability of dendro-calibrated radiocarbon forthe 2nd millennium BC is of dubious utility. Recent reevaluation of theradiocarbon corpus for the Chalcolithic (Burton & Levy 2001),however, suggests that their optimistic model for a tripartite divisionof the Chalcolithic is perhaps premature. Overall, the chapters are excellent, providing technicaldescriptions and illustrations to support analyses of larger ceramicissues. Following the goals of the conference, a number of contributionsare primarily descriptive, focusing on ceramic assemblages from one ortwo sites and emphasizing terminology and definition. After the twointroductory chapters, Lovell presents Chalcolithic ceramics from Pella.Contributions concerning the EBI See electron beam imaging. or the transition to EBII EBII Expeditionary Base Information Infrastructure (Braun,Bourke, Yekutieli, Schaub & Rast, Prag, Yannai & Grosinger,Goren & Zuckerman, Douglas & Kafafi) are the most numerous.Relatively few chapters focus on the EBII or the transition from EBII toEBIII (Greenberg, Fisher, Mazar et al.). The EBIII is included instudies by Genz, Flender, Miroschedji, Harrison and Chesson. Only Adamsspecifically examines the EBIV EBIV Electron-Beam-Induced Voltage in detail. Regionally, representation isgood, including studies from southern Syria (Braemer & Echallier)and western Syria (Mathias) to the southern coast and northern Negev. Similarly to many parts of the world, a fundamental problemconfronting archaeologists in this region is overcoming the commonperception of particular pottery types as representative of specificperiods or peoples. Several studies undermine assumptions of diagnostictypes, indicating contemporaneity of some putative diagnosticcategories. `Band slip', traditionally considered a diagnostic offeature of late EBI sites in northern Palestine/ Transjordan, ischallenged by a number of authors who find it continues into at leastthe EBII or later (Genz, Douglas & Kafafi, Fischer, Mazar et al.).Ceramic types traditionally used as chronological or ethnic markers, inparticular Khirbet Kerak Ware (KKW KKW Kernkraftwerk (German: Nuclear Plant)KKW Kombinationskraftwagen (German: vehicle, combination passenger car or truck)) and Gray Burnished bur��nish?tr.v. bur��nished, bur��nish��ing, bur��nish��es1. To make smooth or glossy by or as if by rubbing; polish.2. To rub with a tool that serves especially to smooth or polish.n. Ware (GBW GBW Guild of Book WorkersGBW Gain BandwidthGBW Green Bay and Western RailroadGBW Guaranteed BandwidthGBW Green Bay & Western Railroad (Green Bay, WI)GBW Good, Bad, Whatever ) arealso the focus of a number of studies (Greenberg, Mazar et al.). Bycomparing the relative proportions of Metallic wares and KKW at Tel Danand Hazor, Greenberg, for example, underscores ceramics as possiblyindicative of social changes such as increasing social differentiationduring EBIII. Contributions include attempts to move away from detailedmorphological attributes in favor of technical analyses, challengingassumptions inherent in some classification systems of southernLevantine Le��vant?1?The countries bordering on the eastern Mediterranean Sea from Turkey to Egypt.Le ceramics. In striving to define a household assemblage,Chesson finds little utility in rim types of vessels for chronologicalunderstandings. Goren & Zuckerman synthesize petrographic pe��trog��ra��phy?n.The description and classification of rocks.pe��trogra��pher n. data withtypology to place GBW within a wider EBI ceramic context, noting thatthere is an increasing correlation between typology and raw materialselection during the EBA, with special technical investment in GBWwares. As the editors acknowledge, the lack of quantified studies ofceramic assemblages is striking and discouraging. With only oneexception (Mazar et al.), the absence of quantified results creates animpediment to assemblage comparisons at the inter- and intra-site level.Studies utilizing the many technological analyses available to ceramicspecialists are also absent. Contributors to this volume confront issues of ceramic definitionand terminology so fundamental to comparative analyses. This is clearlyan essential volume, not only for ceramic specialists of the region, butfor all scholars grappling with the EBA in the southern Levant.Typographical errors are rare and not distracting to the reader. With afew exceptions illustrations are generally good. A single map for thevolume would have been useful, locating sites (e.g. Tell Abu Karaz)absent on the individual maps. This would perhaps obviate the need formaps of poor quality (e.g. figures 8.1, 22.1). Specialists of othermaterial assemblages in the southern Levant should heed theeditors' example and attempt to emulate the motivations behind thisvolume by establishing dialogues concerning terminology, morphology,function and chronological sequences. The editors and contributors ofthis volume are to be commended for this careful first step indismantling entrenched conceptual categories of dubious utility for thelarger goals of scholars of the region. Reference BURTON, M. & T.E. LEVY. 2001. The Chalcolithic radiocarbonrecord and its use in southern Levantine archaeology, in I. Carmi &E. Boaretto (ed.), Proceedings of the 17th International [sup.14]CConference, Radiocarbon 43(2): 1-22.YORKE M. ROWANHumanities & Social SciencesPennsylvania State University, Erieymrowan@hotmail.com