Product Code Database
The Southern Levant is a Region that corresponds approximately to present-day Israel, Palestine, and Jordan; some definitions also include southern Lebanon, southern Syria and the Sinai Peninsula. As a strictly geographical description, it is sometimes used by archaeologists and historians to avoid the religious and political connotations of other names for this area.
Like much of Western Asia, the Southern Levant is an arid region consisting mostly of desert and dry steppe, with a thin strip of wetter, temperate climate along the Mediterranean coast. Geographically it is dominated by the Jordan Valley, a section of the Great Rift Valley bisecting the region from north to south, and containing the Sea of Galilee, the Jordan River and the Dead Sea—the lowest point on the Earth's land surface.
The Southern Levant has a long history and is one of the world's most intensively investigated areas by archaeologists. It is considered likely to be the first place that both early hominins and modern humans colonized outside of Africa. Consequently, it has a rich Stone Age archaeology, stretching back as early as 1.5 million years ago. With one of the earliest sites for urban settlements, it also corresponds to the western parts of the Fertile Crescent.
Many scholars studying the region's archaeology have adopted the term Levant (including northern and southern halves) as the "term of choice" due to it being a "wider, yet relevant, cultural corpus" that does not have the "political overtones" of Syria-Palestine. A survey of North American dissertations shows the "overwhelming emphasis and scope of these works has been the southern Levant, an area formerly identified as Syria-Palestine including Canaan", but with most modern Ph.D. dissertations using the terms 'Israel' and 'Canaan'.
The term "Southern Levant" has also been criticized as imprecise and awkward. The term Southern Levant has been described in academic discourse as a "at least a strictly geographical" description of the region, avoiding religious and political connotations of names such as "Canaan", "Holy Land", "Land of Israel", or "Palestine".
For the most part, the climate of the Southern Levant is arid or semi-arid, however a narrow strip along the coast experiences a temperate, Mediterranean climate due to its proximity to the sea. Average annual rainfall decreases sharply away from the coast, from over per year in Galilee, to in the Rift Valley, and less than in the eastern deserts and the Negev. Across the region, precipitation is both highly seasonal―most rain falls between October and May, and hardly any in the summer—and subject to large, unpredictable inter-annual variation. Temperature is also highly variable, with cool winters and hot summers.
The Jordan River bisects much of the region into the Cisjordan and Transjordan. The Hula Valley feeds into the upper Jordan, which moves southward through a natural basalt barrier into the Sea of Galilee before dropping several hundred metres as it flows through the Jordan Valley. The Jordan River terminates at the Dead Sea, whose banks, at below sea level, are the world's lowest point on dry land. (1971). 9780070477018, American Heritage Press. ISBN 9780070477018
Archaeologically, it is among the most extensively excavated regions in the world.
Several , when stone tools prevailed and make up the bulk of artifacts, are followed by periods when other technologies came into use. They lent their names to the different periods. The basic framework for the southern Levant is, as follows: Paleolithic or Old Stone Age is often divided up into phases called, from early-to-late: Lower Paleolithic, Middle Paleolithic and Upper Paleolithic. An Epipaleolithic (latest Paleolithic) period, also known as Mesolithic (transition to Neolithic) follows and is, in turn succeeded by a Neolithic (New Stone Age).
The following Chalcolithic period includes the first evidence of metallurgy with copper making its appearance. However, as stone technology remains prevalent, the name, Chalcolithic (Copper/Stone) age combines the two.
The next period is generally known as Middle Bronze II and is generally broken down into two sub-periods, Middle Bronze IIa and Middle Bronze IIb. Some scholars acknowledge a Middle Bronze III. The next period is known as Late Bronze and is often sub-divided into Late Bronze I and II.
The 333 BCE conquest of the region by Alexander the Great is accepted as the beginning of the Hellenistic period. The Deuterocanonical book 2 Maccabees records: "Apollonius the son of Tharseas, who at that time was governor of Celesyria and Phenicia", Celesyria being the transliteration of Coele-Syria. It is followed by the Ancient Rome period, with an Early and Late Roman sub-period. The 4th century is recognised as the beginning of the Byzantine Empire period, that lasted until the Arab conquest of the region.
The following period is known as Early Arab and sub-periods by the names of reigning dynasties. The Crusades conquest of the region is known, appropriately as the Crusader period, which in part overlaps with Ayyubid rule, and it is followed by a Mamluk period after the conquering power. In 1516–17 the Ottoman Empire conquered the region and gave its name to the period that lasted until 1917–18, when the British conquered it in World War I.
|
|
