Settlement and Demographic Processes in Israel's Coastal Plain from the Chalcolithic to the Middle Bronze Age

Abstract

This study of Israel's coastal plain goes beyond previous settlement and demographic discussions of ancient Palestine in several respects. It considers not only population totals for each period, but also their spatial distribution. Then it relates the empirical discussion on demography and settlement to various theories of sociocultural change that until now have not been applied to the region in the Chalcolithic and Middle Bronze Ages. After elaborating the details of the settlement and demographic changes from the Chalcolithic to MB II, this article suggests that the first urban culture in the Early Bronze Age emerged, to a large extent, in line with a Boserupian conception that population growth initiates a sociocultural transformation. In contrast, the second urban transformation, at the beginning of the Middle Bronze Age, seems to have been a more Malthusian one, in the sense that the urban transition was followed by a further population increase.