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Excess in precipitation as a cause for settlement decline along the Israeli coastal plain during the third millennium BC

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Avraham Faust  and
Yosef Ashkenazy
Avraham Faust*
Affiliation:
Institute of Archaeology, Martin (Szusz) Department of Land of Israel Studies and Archaeology, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat-Gan 52900, Israel
Yosef Ashkenazy*
Affiliation:
Department of Solar Energy and Environmental Physics, The J. Blaustein Institute for Desert Research, Ben Gurion University of the Negev, Sede Boqer Campus, 84990, Israel
*
*Corresponding author. Fax: +972 3 6354941.E-mail addresses:fausta@mail.biu.ac.il (A. Faust), ashkena@bgu.ac.il (Y. Ashkenazy)
1Fax: +972 8 659 6921.
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Abstract

Although the relations between climate and settlement are not straightforward, there is a general agreement that arid conditions are less favorable for human settlement in the semiarid Near East than humid conditions. Here we show that humid conditions resulted in the abandonment of settlements along the Israeli coastal plain. We first present archaeological evidence for a drastic decline in settlement along the Israeli coast during most of the third millennium BC (Early Bronze Age II–III). Then, based on archaeological and climatic evidence, we link this decline to an environmental change occurring at that time. We propose that increased precipitation intensified the already existing drainage problems and resulted in flooding, which led to the transformation of arable land into marshes and to the spread of diseases, gradually causing settlement decline and abandonment.

Keywords

Early BronzeArchaeologyEnvironmentIsraelCoastSettlementPrecipitation
Type
Research Article
Information
Quaternary Research , Volume 68 , Issue 1 , July 2007 , pp. 37 - 44
Copyright
University of Washington

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