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Archaeologists suggest ‘urban revolution’ was slow in Bronze Age Arabia

3D virtual reconstruction of the Bronze Age site of Al Nata. Reprinted under CC BY license with permission from AFALULA-RCU-CNRS, 2024. Credit: Charloux et al., 2024, PLOS ONE, CC-BY 4.0 (creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

According to a study published in the open access journal PLOS ONE by Guillaume Charroux of the French National Center for Scientific Research in Paris on October 30, 2024, settlements in northern Arabia underwent an urbanization transition between the 3rd and 2nd millennium BC. It is said that it was during the period. colleague.

The development of metropolitan settlements was a major step in the evolution of human civilization. This urbanization process has been difficult to study in northern Arabia, in part due to the region’s lack of well-preserved archaeological sites compared to better understood regions such as the Levant and Mesopotamia. I know.

However, excavations in recent decades have uncovered exceptional ruins that provide insight into the early stages of urbanization in northern Arabia.

In this study, Charloux et al. provide a detailed description of the Bronze Age town of Arnata in the province of Medina, which was occupied from about 2400 to 1500 BC. The town is approximately 1.5 hectares in area and includes a central area and nearby residential areas surrounded by a protective wall.

A series of graves represents a cemetery, and burial customs indicate a degree of social hierarchy. The authors estimate that the town had about 500 inhabitants. Although al-Nata’s size and organization are similar to other sites of similar age in northern Arabia, these sites are smaller and less sociopolitically complex than modern sites in the Levant and Mesopotamia.

The researchers suggest that Al Nata represents a state of “hypo-urbanization”, a transition period between nomadic pastoralism and complex urban settlement. Previous archaeological evidence indicates that northern Arabia was dotted with small fortified cities during the Early Middle Bronze Age, a period when other regions were showing later stages of urbanization.

Further excavations throughout Arabia will provide more detailed information about the timing of this transition and the changes in social structure and architecture that accompanied it.

The authors go on to say, “Archaeologists have uncovered the first small Bronze Age town (c. 2400-1300 BC) in northwest Arabia connected to an extensive network of walls, raising questions about the early development of local urban planning. “There is,” he added. . ”

Further information: Bronze Age towns in the walled oasis of Khyber: A discussion of the early urbanization of northwest Arabia, PLOS ONE (2024). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0309963

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Citation: Archaeologists suggest ‘urban revolution’ was slow in Bronze Age Arabia (October 30, 2024), October 30, 2024 at https://phys.org/news/ Retrieved from 2024-10-archaeologists-urban-revolution-bronze-age. html

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