From Village to Town to Village Again: Settlement Dynamics in the Central Coastal Plain and Adjacent Shephelah from the Late Early Bronze Age I to Early Bronze Age III

The central coastal plain and adjacent Shephelah during the late Early Bronze Age I through Early Bronze III periods has been extensively explored and furnishes us with a ‘laboratory’ rich with settlement data. This information enables an examination of Canaanite EBA settlement history both microscopically and macroscopically, from the single sherd in a specific site, to the region as a whole. Three settlement areas will be discussed to illustrate changes in this region: the Lod valley, in the south; the Aphek valley to the north, and the coastal Tel Aviv area in the west. The consolidation of sites in these three settlement areas occurred between the late 4th millennium and the 3rd millennium BCE, and while having much in common, each had their own peculiarities.