The ACOR Video Lecture Series provides accessible discussions of new research into the past and present of Jordan and the broader Middle East and Eastern Mediterranean worlds. This video, adapted from the September 2016 ACOR public lecture delivered by Dr. Suzanne Richard, examines the site of Khirbat Iskandar in light of ongoing research and new understandings of the Early Bronze Age.
About the Lecture
The Early Bronze Age is undergoing a considerable “sea change” in the light of a new, higher radiocarbon (C-14) chronology. Against that backdrop, this lecture assesses the cultural and chronological linkages of the Early Bronze (EB) III–IV periods (ca. 2900–2000/1950 BCE) between the northern and southern Levant. Realignment with Egyptian chronology shifts the links with the Pyramid Age, while comparisons with Ebla in Syria and the southern Levant provide new insights on the EB IV period.
The talk highlights new vistas on complexity in the EB IV and discusses Syrian and indigenous influences, as well as considers, once again, the EB III urban–EB IV rural shift (ca. 2500 BCE) of sedentists and nomads in this re-evaluation of a critical period in the history of the Near East.
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About the Lecturer
Dr. Suzanne Richard is professor of History and Archaeology at Gannon University in Erie, PA. She is a renowned Early Bronze (EB) Age scholar with an extensive CV of publications, who has directed 12 field seasons (latest in 2016) at the site of Khirbat Iskandar in the Wadi al-Wala—one of the most important sites for understanding the collapse of urbanism (EB III) and transition to a rural economy in EB IV (ca. 2500 BCE).
As an ACOR-CAORC fellow this year, she is working on Vol. 2 of the Khirbat Iskandar Expedition Series; she completed Vol. 1 in 2008 (published 2010), also as an ACOR-CAORC fellow. Her current interests include the interrelationships between the northern and southern Levant in light of the new higher C-14 chronology. The topic of the volume she is currently editing is New Horizons in the Study of the Early Bronze Age III-IV in the Levant.
Dr. Richard is Director of the Collins Institute for Archaeological Research as well as the Archaeology Museum Gallery at Gannon University. She graduated from Gannon University (B.A.) and The Johns Hopkins University (Ph.D.).
