Urbanization in the Levant: An archaeometric approach to understanding the social and economic impact of settlement nucleation in the Biqamacr-c valley

The transition from mobile hunting and gathering societies to settled agricultural and urban societies first took place in the ancient Near East. This transition is a pivotal phase in a process that has ultimately led to the proliferation of urbanized spaces and societies worldwide. Much like modern populations, early peoples had to adapt socially and technologically to face the challenges posed by natural and anthropogenic changes to their environment including climate change, environmental degradation, population growth, and resource scarcity. The investigation of an increasingly urbanized and altered landscape provides important insights into human social, economic, and technological adaptation in response to such challenges.;The Early Bronze Age in the Levant marks the transition from the diffuse and principally agrarian settlements that had been characteristic of the region during the Neolithic and Chalcolithic periods, to the first large and nucleated settlements. For nearly a century, scholars have fiercely debated the process by which this transition occurred and its effect on the ancient societies of the Levant. The product of these debates has typically been the development of generalized theoretical frameworks representing a simplification of what was surely a complex and varied process. Likewise, the economic and social changes that occurred as a result of 'urbanization', or more properly termed for this period, settlement nucleation, are traditionally understood through generalizations and normative models.;This dissertation aims to utilize a new methodological approach, which combines the typological and archaeometric analysis of Neolithic, Chalcolithic, and Early Bronze Age ceramics with data from a regional survey conducted in the Biqāc (also Bekka and Biqaa) Valley in Lebanon, to better understand the social, economic, and environmental changes that led to and accompanied early urbanization. An archaeometric approach, in combination with a landscapes approach, allows for a better understanding of the changes in the production and distribution of ceramics that accompanied the shift to a more urbanized society. Archaeometric techniques will identify and quantify the geological components of the clays used to manufacture the ceramic samples to determine their provenience. The changes in the number and location of discrete geological sources used in making the ceramics found at different sites will signify shifts in both the degree of centralization of production and the geographical foci of production. Identifying the discreet geological clay sources used in production will also inform on changes in patterns of distribution by confirming the presence of ceramics in one area that were produced in another. Identifying the patterns of distribution will provide a better understanding of the level of economic integration between sites and site clusters in and around the survey area and how this integration changes in the different periods under consideration.;Significant changes in the economy would surely have been echoed socially, and a better understanding of these economic changes will yield important insights into socio-cultural transformations during the first 'urban' period in the Levant.