POLITICAL ECOLOGY

As noted above, political ecology aims at understanding how access to natural resources plays a critical role in structuring the political and economic life of societies, especially how food and other basic resources are procured. One of the guiding studies for political ecology research is Piers Blaikie’s 1985 The Political Economy of Soil Erosion, which examined how land degradation in sub-Saharan Africa was linked to colonial land appropriation, rather than over-use by local traditional farmers. As an analytical tool for archaeologists, political ecology can help (a) clarify decisions that communities make about their natural environment in the context of their changing political environment, economic pressure, and cultural context; (b) explore how unequal relations among societies in a research area affect the natural environment; and (c) investigate how unequal sociocultural relations affect the environment.

Summary

In the context of a distinctive civilization collapse of all eastern Mediterranean ancient “superpowers” at the end of the Late Bronze Age, and increasingly aridity, nomadic peoples residing in the southern Levantine desert zone and the Hijaz region in northwest Arabia took advantage of a power vacuum created by the collapse of world (eastern Mediterranean) markets and colonial projects. For the southern Levant, one of the most significant impacts was the collapse of cyprus as the main supplier of Late Bronze Age copper for the region. During the Iron I-IIa periods, new social groups converged on Canaan (such as the Sea Peoples) and Transjordan that gradually evolved into distinct ethnic groups such as the Philistines, Israelites, Moabites, and Edomites. New archaeological data from the lowlands of Edom show a relatively rapid process for the formation of a local complex chiefdom already in the tenth century B. C. that was nomadic in both practice and ideology, but in the context of the political ecology of the region increased their production strategies beyond animal husbandry to include sophisticated mining, metallurgy, and control of the copper trade to boost their economies and dominate neighboring peoples. The prominence of mining and metallurgical activities in the Faynan district created a highly specialized Iron Age industrial landscape infused with local nomadic Edomites who formed part of a complex chiefdom. Through processes of fusion and fission related to the dictates of carrying out metal-production activities in this Saharo-Arabian desert zone in an environment with less rainfall than today, the Edomites carried out metal production activities in the cool fall months and winters, and moved up to the highlands in the summer months. A burial with tenth-century B. C. gold jewelry found at Tawilan and stylistically similar to samples found at KEN and the WFD 40 cemetery may be an indicator of such lowland-highland interaction (Levy et al. 2005a; Ogden 1995). By developing a highly successful metal industry in the tenth century B. C., it is possible the Edomites attracted the interest of neighboring polities such as Israel early in the century, and perhaps at the end of the tenth century B. C. the Egyptians, as evidenced by ornaments dating from the time of Siamun and Sheshonq (Shishak) I found in a securely dated context in a metal-production building at Khirbet en-Nahas. As suggested by the ethnogenesis model above (Faust 2006; Levy and Holl 2002; Levy 2008a, 2008b), Edomite resistance to neighboring polities such as the Israelite, as well as the Egyptian state, may have been another key factor in stimulating the expansion of eleventh-ninth-century B. C. copper production and their social and ethnic identity as an expanding chieftaincy at this time.

The following summary points can be made concerning the data that indicate the formation of the Edomite chiefly confederacy that begins in the tenth century B. C. and peaks in the ninth century B. C.:

• High-precision radiocarbon dates demonstrate the deep-time history of Iron Age Edom, from at least the twelfth through ninth centuries B. C. (Higham et al. 2005; Levy et al. 2004; Levy et al. 2005b). Most recently, a new sequence of high-precision radiocarbon dates from the first controlled excavations of a slag mound at Khirbet en-Nahas demonstrates intensive industrial-scale metal production during the tenth and

THOMAS E. LEVY

Ninth centuries B. C. (Levy et al. 2008). The mining and smelting activities associated with these archaeometallurgical data indicate that complex societies were responsible for industrial-scale metal production during these centuries. While it is not yet possible to identify who controlled metal production in Faynan during these centuries, the dominance of local “Edomite” pottery from the excavation samples indicates the centrality of the local population in metal production at this time (smith and Levy 2008). When these data are linked to archaeological materials such as Qurayra ware, egyptian scarabs and amulets, cypro-Phoenician ware, black burnished juglets, and other ceramic types, there is evidence of interaction between a number of different ethnic groups at KEN, including edomites, Phoenicians, Israelites, egyptians, and “Midianites” (see Levy et al. 2004; Rothenberg 1998; Rothenberg and Glass 1983) during the iron Age from production and other sites in the faynan district of the edom lowlands. The establishment of a radiocarbon-based chronology from stratified excavations in southern Jordan adds some 300 more years to the iron age chronology of edom (Levy et al. 2008). This new framework requires that researchers re-engage the Hebrew Bible and other historical datasets concerning pre-eighth-century B. C. edom to test and model the nature of socioeconomic change at this time.

Excavations in the iron age WFD 40 cemetery indicate the presence of a large nomadic population in edom lowlands with economic specialization in pastoralism, but possibly mining and metallurgy. chemical analyses of human remains will be carried out to test the hypotheses that this population was involved in the industrial-scale metal production in the Faynan region. There is potential for such studies for human and animal remains in faynan and the Negev Desert (see grattan, gilbertson, and hunt 2007; grattan, huxley, and Pyatt 2003; hunt et al. 2004; Pyatt et al. 2000; Pyatt and grattan 2001; Pyatt 1999). This research is being planned with geochemist Yigal erel from the institute of earth sciences, hebrew university of jerusalem. contamination of the environment with toxic metals (e. g., lead, cadmium, copper) has been a worldwide problem since the industrial Revolution. however, there is ample evidence that the global pollution by metals started a long time before then, as shown by j. grattan and others (grattan, gilbertson, and hunt 2007). among other issues, our research will trace through the iron age how humans have been polluted from metal production and how this may have related to the rise of ranked societies at this time in the southern Levant.

Although studies of the Wadi fidan 40 cemetery have been preliminary (Beherec in progress; Levy, adams, and shafiq 1999; Levy et al. 2005a), the layout of the circular and cist grave mortuary structures shows no centralized burial monuments and probably reflects a segmentary society social organization. The burial patterns reflect local “folk” religious beliefs and practices. Based on historical egyptian data, the egyptians referred to these people as “shasu” nomads (avishur 2007; Kitchen 1992; Levy and Najjar 2006a). at this time, we do not know by what name this population referred to themselves. however, based on numerous studies of the hebrew Bible, the name “edomites” is most likely.

The typical decorated painted ceramic wares from iron age edom, sometimes referred to as Busayra ware, were typically ascribed by earlier researchers as dating only to the seventh century B. C. or later. however, new studies of this material found at sites in israel have pushed the dating of this ware back to the eighth century B. C.

(Singer-Avitz 2004). Our recent excavations at Iron Age sites in the lowlands of Edom demonstrate Busayra ware is also found in tenth - and ninth-century B. C. stratified sequences. Taken together, the new data imply long-term development of aesthetic cultural patterns between the lowlands and highlands of edom providing a possible indicator of Edomite ethnicity and the process of ethnogenesis.

•  Twelfth - through ninth-century edomite identity was shaped by local peer-polity interaction (Renfrew 1986; Renfrew and cherry 1986) and resistance to neighboring social groups — as well as rejuvenated by egyptian state expansionary projects in the Twenty-first and Twenty-second Dynasties. While egypt was unable to reinstitute its Late Bronze age-style colonization of Palestine, the pharaoh shoshenq I was keen to disrupt the socioeconomic order that David and his son solomon had established. The recent excavations and analyses of a mound of industrial copper slag at KEN document a major disruption in production at the end of the tenth century B. C. that may be attributed to the shoshenq I campaign (Levy et al. 2008). Due to processes of oscillations in core civilization power during the Twenty-first and Twenty-second egyptian Dynasties, they were unable to reinstate the colonial model, probably due to what Gil stein (stein 1999) refers to as the “Distance Parity Model.” With the dissipation of core civilization influence from both mesopotamia and egypt at this time, peer-polity interaction between edom, Israel, Moab, Philistia, and other small local complex societies became a major platform for the negotiation of power.

•  early resistance to neighboring peer polities and conflict within shasu segmentary society of iron age edom led to processes of fission within seir/edom. soleb temple and amarah inscriptions “Yhw (in) in the land of the shasu.” Dates from late fifteenth century B. C. suggesting the “tetragrammaton” name of the israelite god “Yahweh.” Biblical tradition suggests that yahweh came “forth from se’ir” and originated in edom (see redford 1992: 273, who calls them the shasu/israel group), thus early israel may have been one of the shasu clans.

•  As outlined here, and as especially articulated in Faust’s work for ancient israel, different processes of ethnogenesis were followed for the different ethnic groups in southern Jordan/Hijaz, Northwest Arabia, that is, Midianites, edomites, israelites. This is an extremely fertile problem area for future investigation.

•  Language — Development of the edomite script may represent the tail-end of ethno-genesis among elite groups in edomite society (Porter 2004).

•  Finally, maintenance of edomite ethnicity in the Neo-Assyrian period (seventh-sixth centuries B. C.) led to resistance and negotiation with a core civilization, effecting social changes that went well beyond those caused by peer polity interaction.

In conclusion, the “oscillating tribal segmentary social system” model discussed here can help explain how, in a marginal desert environment under the push and pull of neighboring polities and ancient core civilizations, nomadic peoples could adapt and grow into a small secondary state-level society. By focusing on three interrelated processes — ethnogenesis, political ecology, and the oscillating tribal segmentary social system — we are on the road to understanding how social evolution in the late second and first millennia could occur. Much more work needs to be done that is rooted in archaeological field research and scientific approaches to the iron Age archaeological record of the southern Levant.

THOMAS E. LEVY