MICHAL BIRKENFELD

Senior Academic

Reconstructing socio-political urban-rural interactions using viewshed analysis

The Late Bronze Age at Ramat Bet Shemesh, Israel

Yitzhak Paz, Michal Birkenfeld

The archaeological research conducted during the last two decades at the Judean Shephelah testifies for one of the most turbulent regions in the land of Israel during the Late Bronze Age. This stands in contrast to the scarce historical record that relates to it. The geographic region of Ramat Bet Shemesh encompasses important information about socio-political relations between the small rural settlements and hamlets and the city-states that dominated the area from the west. Advanced GIS modelling is one of the main research tools that enables us to reconstruct various aspects of these interactions. In this paper, the results of viewshed analyses are presented, suggesting that these interactions are defined, among other things, by a solidarity between small rural occupations that resist territorial rigid inner division of the landscape.

Publication language English
Pages 230-244
Volume 10
Issue number 3
Publication status Published - 01.12.2017

Keywords

City states
GIS
Late Bronze Age
Ramat Bet Shemesh
Rural villages
Viewshed Analysis

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Ecology
Nature and Landscape Conservation
Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law
Access to Document
10.1515/jlecol-2017-0035
Other files and links
Link to publication in Scopus