Late Bronze Age Settlement Patterns
What do these modern ruins indicate? In using the surveys to determine Late Bronze Age settlement patterns, the first step is to classify the sites. For the Karak Plateau, this has already been done, as the surveys mentioned above classified the sites when they reported them. Several assumptions must be made, however, concerning these classifications. It is often difficult to determine, for instance, what type of ancient settlement the modern remains indicate. For this study, it was assumed that ruins and modern settlements indicate ancient settlements, while sherd scatters represent nomadic encampments or other temporary occupation. Individual building remains were not included as settlements, because they probably indicate ancient watchtowers, agricultural buildings, and other edifices that were not occupied as dwellings except for short periods of time. Although this may not be accurate for all the buildings discovered in the surveys, the buildings for which this is an inaccurate classification should be few enough that the study will not be adversely affected. A final assumption is that the amount of Late Bronze Age pottery found at a particular site is a relative indicator of the size of that site in that period.
What were the Late Bronze Age settlement patterns on the Karak Plateau? In plotting the Late Bronze Age sites on a map, only the ruins and settlements will be included, since they are the only categories that indicate long-term occupation. Neither buildings nor sherd scatters will be mapped.
The map below, produced using a GIS, shows the locations of the Late Bronze Age settlements and ruins on the Karak Plateau.
As is evident from the map, the Late Bronze Age on the Karak Plateau is represented by quite a number of sites. Sixty-seven sites included pottery from this period. When compared with the preceding Middle Bronze Age (2100-1550 B.C.), which only had twenty-six sites, the Late Bronze Age is seen to be a time of expanded settlement in this region. It is likely that the increase from the Middle to Late Bronze Age was accomplished through steady growth of sites, as all but six of the settlements in the Middle Bronze Age continued to be occupied in the Late Bronze Age. Settlement density declines after this period, with the following Iron I era having only forty-eight settlement sites.
The second thing to notice about the settlements is that they are the densest in the central and southern parts of the plateau. It is unclear why this is the case, since the soil in the northern part of the plateau is more fertile. This indicates that some factor other than fertility was dictating the choice of sites. This factor may have been political. As noted above, this period saw Egypt controlling the areas to the west of the Jordan and some parts to the east of Jordan north of the Karak Plateau, but whether or not Egypt controlled the Karak Plateau is unclear. The only evidence for an Egyptian presence on the plateau comes from Balu’a, a site in the north. It may be that people were settling in the south in order to avoid coming under the control of the Egyptians. This is only a theory, however, and cannot be proven.
The final thing to notice is that the majority of the settlements in the Late Bronze Age were small. Of the sixty-seven sites, only nineteen have more than five pieces of pottery from this period. It is likely therefore that most of the sites were merely villages, and probably few of them had any fortifications whatsoever. By contrast, Balu’a, which is the largest site in this period, yielded two-two pieces of Late Bronze Age pottery.