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  2. Shiqmim II: The phase II excavations at a Chalcolithic settlement center in the northern Negev desert, Israel (1987 - 1993)

Shiqmim II: The phase II excavations at a Chalcolithic settlement center in the northern Negev desert, Israel (1987 - 1993)

Thomas E. Levy, Yorke M. Rowan and Margie M. Burton
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The Chalcolithic period (ca. 4500–3600 BCE) in the southern Levant represents the rise of regional polities, the metallurgical revolution, and a set of other significant socio-economic changes that distinguish it from the preceding Pottery Neolithic period. Central to these issues are the Phase II (1987–1989, 1993) excavations at Shiqmim, a large Chalcolithic settlement center in Israel’s northern Negev desert.The first phase of excavations at Shiqmim took place between 1979 and 1984 and were described in Shiqmim I, Parts i and ii (BAR Publishing, 1987). Shiqmim II reports on the second phase of excavations at this complex site and contributes to a greater understanding of its Chalcolithic stratigraphy, architecture, and chronology. It includes the project research design and history framed in an anthropological archaeology perspective, primary excavation data, and a Bayesian analysis of radiocarbon dates from Shiqmim presented in comparison with dates from contemporary regional sites.
  • Front Cover
  • Title Page
  • Copyright Page
  • By the Same Author and Of Related Interest
  • Contents
  • List of Figures
  • List of Tables
  • 1. Personal Reflections on a Desert Chiefdom – The History and Research Design of the Phase II Excavations at Shiqmim
    • 1.1. History of research
      • 1.1.1. In the beginning
      • 1.1.2. Mapping Shiqmim
      • 1.1.3. Desert chiefdom
      • 1.1.4. Chiefdom model under attack
    • 1.2. Shiqmim II research design
      • 1.2.1. The 1987 season
      • 1.2.2. The 1988 season
      • 1.2.3. The 1989 season
      • 1.2.4. The 1993 season
    • 1.3. Summary
    • 1.4. Concluding remarks
    • 1.5. Acknowledgments
    • 1.6. References
  • 2. The Settlement Center: Phase II Excavations in the Shiqmim Village—Stratigraphy, Architecture, and Social Change
    • 2.1. Introduction
    • 2.2. Methodology
    • 2.3. Notes on subterranean systems
      • 2.3.1. Notes on terminology
      • 2.3.2. Subterranean site formation processes
      • 2.3.3. Excavation
    • 2.4. North Trench (1987)
      • 2.4.1. Overview
      • 2.4.2. Stratum I
      • 2.4.3. Stratum II
    • 2.5. South Trench (1987)
      • 2.5.1. Overview
      • 2.5.2. Stratum I
      • 2.5.3. Stratum II
    • 2.6. Area P (1988)
      • 2.6.1. Overview
      • 2.6.2. Stratum I
      • 2.6.3. Stratum II
      • 2.6.4. Stratum III
    • 2.7. Area Y (1988–89)
      • 2.7.1. Overview
      • 2.7.2. Stratum I
      • 2.7.3. Stratum II
      • 2.7.4. Stratum III
      • 2.7.5. Vessel clusters: Strata I–III
    • 2.8. Area J (1989)
      • 2.8.1. Overview
      • 2.8.2. Stratum I copper-smelting contexts (CS1, CS2, CS3)
      • 2.8.3. Subterranean systems and phases
      • 2.8.4. Relative dating of Subterranean Systems 1 and 2
    • 2.9. Area D (1988-1989, 1993)
      • 2.9.1. Overview
      • 2.9.2. Stratum I
      • 2.9.3. Stratum II
      • 2.9.4. Stratum III
    • 2.10. Area X (1993)
      • 2.10.1. Overview
      • 2.10.2. Area X-West
      • 2.10.3. Area X-East
    • 2.11. Area E (1993)
      • 2.11.1. Overview
      • 2.11.2. Stratum I
      • 2.11.3. Stratum II
    • 2.12. Area Z (1993)
      • 2.12.1. Overview
      • 2.12.2. Stratum I
      • 2.12.3. Stratum II
    • 2.13. Summary
      • 2.13.1. Stratum III
      • 2.13.2. Stratum II
      • 2.13.3. Stratum I
      • 2.13.4. Subterranean complexes
    • 2.14. References
  • 3. Radiocarbon Dating of the Shiqmim Settlement
    • 3.1. Introduction
    • 3.2. Methods
    • 3.3. Results and discussion
    • 3.4. Conclusion
    • 3.5. Acknowledgements
    • 3.6. References
  • Appendix 2.1.
  • Appendix 2.2.
  • Back Cover
Citable Link
Published: 2023
Publisher: BAR Publishing
ISBN(s)
  • 9781407360591 (paper)
  • 9781407360607 (ebook)
BAR Number: S3144
Subject
  • Levant / Near East
  • Neolithic / Chalcolithic
  • Architecture / Domestic and Urban Buildings and Space / Urbanism

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Shiqmim II Chapter 3 OxCal CQL Code

Six cells depict a story in a comic strip format. Cell 1 shows the title 'Back to the Holy Land, 1977'. The next cell shows a man with a moustache speaking to a pale man in glasses and a hat dressed in black. They are standing in front of a brick toilet block. The accompanying text reads: 'I was a poor student and my accomodations in Sheffield reflected this. The row houses in Ruth Square, south of the university, had been spared during the WWII German bombings. The university owned a number of these flats, and I was fortunate to share one with Richard, an advanced student of architecture. Every night I could hear the next-door neighbor shouting and beating his wife. It was a depressing scene. In the morning, the old man would greet me in the back of the flat on our way to the outdoor loo as if all was well. This was on the eve of receiving George's letter and I was close to having Alina as my girlfriend.' Cell 2: The moustached man is sitting at the kitchen table, dishing himself some food. Across the table is a woman with long hair and earrings. It reads: 'After the free Jaffa oranges at Hillel, I bumped into Alina in the book stacks located in the bowels of the Sheffield library. It was a wonderful place to study, and Alina was at home down there studying for her final BSc exams in microbiology. We talked, she invited me to play squash (a game I never heard of) and after several weeks, I invited her to my place in Ruth Square for Bazella – an Arabic dish Jim Waldron taught me to cook with peas. To this day, Alina marvels that I had the chutzpah to make rice for an Indian woman.' Cell 3: The moustached man looks surprised and concerned, opening a letter which is labelled as an aerogram. The text reads: 'I was shattered after learning that Prof. Theocharis had died and immediately saw my dreams of working in Greece quickly evaporate. Another bout of depression was sinking in, and I went to student health where the doctor prescribed antidepressants of some kind. When Alina visited me in Ruth Square and saw the pills on the table she said, "Pull your socks up and find somewhere else to work. You will be fine. I'm here when you need me."' Cell 4: The top of the cell shows the moustached man sitting in front of books with Dr. Barker. Underneath, a night scene shows a rundown urban scene with rubbish, cracked buildings, and a man urinating against a wall. It reads: 'Sheffield was an awesome research environment. It was the real deal – the professors were encouraging but graduate students had to find their own opportunities and funding. When things fell apart for me in Greece, I went to Graeme Barker's office and he said – "Tom, you worked on a dig in Israel back in 1971, why don't you go back there and find a PhD project?" I moved into the Broom Hall Council Flats, a post-war derelict concrete complex where Dave Fine, a classmate owned a flat. Dave rented cheap space to me and Chris Gosden who went on to become a renown professor in archaeology at the University of Oxford. The three of us had fun. However, many of the residents were unemployed, women occasionally threw themselves off the upper floors, and on the way home from the pubs at night, people urinated in the lifts.' Cell 6: The moustached man and his bike are on a stratigraphic map of re-deposited loess and eocene chalk, with fighter jets overhead and a fortification on a hill with a man behind a gun. The bike is labelled as being used in the survey of the wadi. It reads: 'In 1977, I decided to focus my PhD on the rise of the earliest cities in the Southern Levant, ca. 3,000-2650 BCE. To do this, I planned a survey of 5th and 4th millenium BCE sites along Wadi Beersheva/Wadi Gaza (Nahal Besor) in Israel's Negev desert. Since the '67 Six-Day War Israeli archaeologists were mostly researching in the occupied Sinai desert. As hardly anyone was working in the northern Negev, I picked Beersheva as my base. I soon met David Alon, the Inspector of the region and he gave me permission (not a permit) to do the job. I could only afford a 1-speed bike to carry out on the survey. One one of the first days, a guard at the Hazerim airbase fired a shot in my direction. I was scared "shitless" and quickly abandoned surveying in that area – for awhile.'

The beginning of the Shiqmim project, 1977

Seven cells depict a story in a comic strip format. The first cell shows the title 'Rivers in the Desert and Dad's Death, 1978'. Underneath is a picture of a folded and framed American flag, with medals underneath and a picture of a man in the centre. Cell 2: Alina is leaning against a white van with mountains in the background. She is holding an egg, which a label shows. It reads: 'The 1977 preliminary survey along the Wadi Beersheva was hard but a great success. In early 1978, I received a small research grant from my department in Sheffield and purchased an old Fiat mini-van for £350. I built a plywood bed in the back. Denell doubted it would make it out of Sheffield. By June, Alina and I put Alphonse (so we named it) on the Hovercraft and were driving across Europe to Greece to pick up a ferry to Haifa. When we were 50 km from the Greek border in Communist Yugoslavia (now Northern Macedonia), Alphonse sprung a leak in the engine block. My old Cuban neighbor in the Valley told me in such circumstances, crack a fresh egg and drop it in the radiator. The hard part was for Alina asking for the egg in our campground where no one spoke English. The egg was a great temporary fix!' Cell 3: Alina is in front of a yellow house with Israeli flags, by a backdrop of trees and the sun. A sign in front of the house says Kibbutz Urim. The text reads: 'Our plan on arriving in Israel was to find Alina a volunteer position at a Kibbutz in the Negev while I joined Prof. Dever's excavation at Beer Ressisim in the central Negev to gain more field experience. The Kibbutz office arranged for Alina to be at Urim. After dropping her off at the Kibbutz, I traveled south to meet Dever's team. That night, Alina was assigned to the screwdriver factory and immediately fell in love with the Kibbutz and its very successful brand of socialism.' Cell 4: Dever and Tom are standing at the excavation. People are digging in the background. It reads: 'I left Kibbutz Urim early in the morning and had a hard time locating the Early Bronze IV (ca. 2300–2000 BCE) site where Prof. Dever was excavating with Israeli archaeologist Rudolf (Rudy) Cohen. It was just before lunch, so the archaeologists were still digging. When I found Dever at the tent camp, he rushed up to me and said, "Tom, your Uncle Stephen called to say your father is dying and you need to return to LA ASAP." I immediately jumped into Alphonse and drove back to Kibbutz Urim to say goodbye to Alina.' Cell 5: Tom and his dad are hugging in an airport with a plane on the runway out the window. A text box says 'corned beef on rye bread sandwiches'. The main text reads: 'It is hard to imagine that +40 years ago, without cell phones and Google Earth, it was much harder to navigate and communicate around the world. This is why we didn't know how serious my father's health was as we traveled with Alphonse across Europe – until I arrived at at Beer Ressisim. Alina and I were poor, so it was out of the question that she could accompany me home. However, Dad knew about Alina from my letters. When I arrived at LAX, I was amazed to see my father standing at the exit waiting for me.' Cell 6: Tom and his dad are sitting at a diner table with sandwiches, and a sign above reads 'Brent's Delicatessen & Restaurant'. The main text reads, 'Ten months earlier, Dad had been diagnosed with cancer of the bile duct. Uncle Gene was in the operating room and told the surgeon to sew Dad up as further operating might kill him. The doctor gave my dad a year to live. It was now month 11. A week after my arrival, Dad was still in good enough shape to invite me to lunch at our favorite Deli. He leaned over the table and said, "I need to tell you something I never told your mother." I thought he was going to say he had a mistress or something similar. Instead, he said after serving with the B-17 Bomb Group in England, he transferred to ground troops in Germany and was at the liberation of the Dachau concentration camp. He said, "We administered instant justice to the Nazis we found there." Dad was not proud of this but satisfied he had done the right thing. Dad died on July 25, 1978 as we played his favorite Johnny Cash songs on the taple player. I stayed on for a week to help my mother sort things out.'

Understanding the significance of Shiqmim for Levantine prehistory

Seven comic book cells depict a story. The first cell shows the title 'Warring Chiefdoms From the banks of the Wadi Beersheva, 1987-1993'. The second cell shows a man named Ibrahim in sunglasses and a polo shirt standing in front of a white can, with tents on the hill in the background. The text reads, 'By 1987 I secured major funding from National Geographic and the National Endowment for Humanities for a 3-year project to explore the rise of the earliest chiefdom in the southern Levant based on excavations at Shiqmim. A chiefdom is a regional polity, with a two-tier settlement hierarchy (large village center with smaller sattellite sites) that was fueled by chiefly control over food surpluses and craft specialization. Chiefdoms led directly to the rise of the first cities and early civilizations. My early surveys along the Wadi Beersheva and Wadi Gaza and excavations at Shiqmim put my work at the center of scholarly debate on whether my team and I had indeed found the earliest chiefdom in our region. By late September, I assembled an interdisciplinary team and vlunteers from around the world to explore the earliest strata at Shiqmim and the rise of social complexity. We camped on a chalk hilltop opposite the Shiqmim site. I appointed Ibrahim Al-A'asam as camp manager. Ibrahim's tribe is part of the Qderat tribe group, of the Tiaha confederation. They adopted me as part of the Al-A'asam tribe. I visit Ibrahim and the family every time I'm in Israel. Cell 3 shows people at the excavation doing various jobs like digging a nd sieving. To the side is a tunnel that leads to underground rooms and more tunnels. Inside is a man named Yoav Arbel. The text reads, 'While we were in the field a gravel extraction company was digging in the wadi. On our arrival they had cut into Shiqmim. Although the site was damaged, the tractor cut showed that there were rooms at the site! We began excavating north of this tractor trench and found a copper workshop just below the surface. Soon a pit emerged. It went down over 3 meters. This tunner led to over 10 underground rooms filled with storage silos, pottery vessels, and prestige objects. It was very dangerous excavating underground. My best excavator was Yoav Arbel who eventually went on to do a PhD with me at UCSD.' Cell 4 shows sillouettes of gazelle jumping, with fire on the horizon and two people falling in parachutes. The text reads, 'One afternoon Alina and I were driving back to Shiqmim in our jeep. Suddenly we saw an Israeli air force jet in the distance diving down and heard a giant explosion. Alina started to cry and then we saw two parachutes floating to earth. When the plane hit the ground there was a fireball and tens of gazelle jumped into the air in the desert sky.' Cell 5 Shows a man called Major Raz and Tom standing next to a helicopter with a dog at their feet. The text reads, 'I put the jeep in gear and we raced to where the parachutes came down. We found the pilot and the navigator collecting their aerial photos that were scattered around their ejected seats. "Can we help you?" I asked. "No thanks, just some water please. The rescue chopper will be here in 5 minutes. You guys should leave now." As soon as the jet went down, Bedouin, scavenging for parts, descended on the crash area and the Israeli Air Force was rapidly entering the area to prevent those parts being smuggled across the border into Egypt. Thus began a wonderful relationship with Major Raz (who our students affectionally called "Razbo" after the popular movie star character "Rambo". Every day for a week Raz would land his chopper on the hilltop next to our tent camp. He would have coffee with us and then fly off to continue investigating the crash. One day I asked if he could fly us around so I could take the first aerial photos of Shiqmim. "No problem" said Razbo, and soon Alina and I were airborne over the wadi.' Cell 6 shows three students in water with their arms in the air. On the shore, Tom, Yorke and Yoav are holding a rope tied to Ibrahim who is walking out into the water to save them. The text reads, 'By mid-October there was a rainstorm in the southern Judean mountains. It rained in the night and our excavation was covered in pools of water. I called off work that day (very rare for me) and told the volunteers not to venture near the wadi as there might be a flash flood. Ibrahim and I walked down to inspect the site and saw three students stuck in the middle of the wadi as the water rose around them rapidly. I told Ibrahim to run to camp, grab a rope and staff to help with the rescue. Thanks to Ibrahim, he reached the Spanish students stuck in the middle of the wadi in time for them to pull themselves to safety along the rope we held. Ibrahim was almost swept away. I was tempted to throw the students off the project but didn't.' Cell 7 shows archaeologists setting up wires and receptors along the ground, called geophones. Two of the archaeologists are labelled as Alan Witten and Sarah Whitcher/Kansa. The text reads, 'By 1993, I teamed up with an amazing geophysicist, Alan Witten who worked for ttears at the Oak Ridge Laboratory in Tennessee. Alan got increasingly interested in archaeology. At Shiqmim we applied his method of Geophysical Diffraction Tomography to image under the hills. Alan's method was featured in the movie "Jurassic Park". We discovered that the hills of Shiqmim were permeated with underground room complexes extending for half a kilometer. Finally, we had evidence of the two main economic drivers of chiefdoms – central control of surplus food or staple goods stored underground and of a prestige economy based on the control of craft specialization in metallurgy, ivory, ceramics and beautiful basalt vessels.

Highlights of the Shiqmim II expedition, 1987–93

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