Possible Effects of Climate Change on the Development and Decline of Ancient Levant Settlements in Bronze and Iron Period (between 3500 and 500 BC)
Abstract: The issues of the impact of climate change on settlements are still very topical. Research is ongoing on the extent to which life in our cities is affected by climate change and strategies are being sought to adapt and resilience our settlements to these changes. However, as we study the development of urban construction, we are increasingly finding that the development and decline of settlements or entire settlement systems in the past was not only the result of social changes, as the history of urbanism has so far largely stated, but also the result of economic changes, the centre of gravity of which has been based in many (and perhaps most cases) on changes of a climatic nature. Significant changes in temperature, changes in the distribution of precipitation or fluctuations in sea level or other significant water bodies, including their exudation, were probably the fundamental drivers in changing the economic conditions of settlements or settlement systems, and were thus probably also important factors in the development, decline, or even disappearance of these settlements. Based on its own wider study of the development of ancient settlements in the Middle East region, the article focuses on the search and examination of examples of these climate changes during the Bronze and Iron Age (i.e., approximately 3,500 to 500 BC) in the Levant region and their impacts on the development and decline of settlements. The article is based on current knowledge of both archaeology and history and the author's own field survey, as well as knowledge of historical climatology, which is already quite developed in this territory (especially on localities located in the territory of present state of Israel). The article discusses examples of the development and demise of settlements that operated in both these periods – Hazor and Arad in Negev, as well as settlements that disappeared at the end of the Bronze Age – especially the example of Ugarit, or after the end of the Bronze Age had a significant rupture in its settlement, the example of Jericho. Furthermore, examples of settlements of newly forming iron-age settlements are given. Samaria was chosen as suitable examples. The conclusion of the article evaluates the degree of impact of climate change on the development, functioning, or extinction of these settlements.
