Complex Communities
Subtitle: The Archaeology of Early Iron Age West-Central Jordan
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
Published: 2013
Language: eng
Number of pages: 224
ISBN-13: 9780816530328
Subjects: Human settlements; Iron age; Jordan, antiquities
Description: "Complex Communities explores how sedentary settlements developed and flourished in the Middle East during the Early Iron Age nearly four thousand years ago. Using archaeological evidence, Benjamin Porter reconstructs how residents maintained their communities despite environmental uncertainties. Living in a semi-arid area in the present-day country of Jordan, villagers faced a harsh and unpredictable ecosystem. Communities fostered resilience by creating flexible production routines and leadership strategies. Settlements developed what archaeologists call "communal complexity," a condition through which small-scale societies shift between egalitarian and hierarchical arrangements. Complex Communities provides detailed, scientifically grounded reconstructions of how this communal complexity functioned in the region." -- Publisher's description.