A desert revolution: transformations in Northwestern Arabia and the Arid Southern Levant in the late 2nd millennium BCE

Abstract

Revolutionary changes in the ancient Near East have usually been associated with the agricultural and urban societies in the Fertile Crescent – recall the long-held notions of “Neolithic revolution” and “Urban revolution.” But often the semi-pastoral nomadic societies in the desert regions were, and still are, seen as inherently conservative and unchanging. But paradigms regarding the arid regions have now changed enormously. Archaeologist Steven Rosen suggests that during two periods in the history of the arid southern Levant, transformations were so dramatic and involved so many aspects of life that they can be considered “revolutions in the desert.” The first moment is the adoption of domestic herd animals during the 6th-5th millennia BCE, and the second is the rise of mobile pastoralism in the 4th-3rd millennia BCE. New evidence now suggests that a third “desert revolution” occurred in northwestern Arabia and the arid southern Levant between the mid-2nd and early 1st millennia BCE... processing, appeared in northwestern Arabia far earlier than in the southern Levant. This forces us to rethink traditional approaches that see the circulation of innovations as moving from the Near Eastern “cores” to the Arabian “peripherie