L'étude de la transition du Bronze récent II au Fer I en Palestine méridionale

This work centres on one central question: should the passage from the Late Bronze II to the Iron I Age in Palestine, from the 13th to the 11th centuries BCE, be viewed, as is classically accepted, simply as a period of transition characterised by occasionally disrupted continuities? And yet the process of territorial division characteristic of Palestine, and of the entire Levant during this period, engendered the development of new cultural entities, initially introverted (13th century), but subsequently in contact with each other through political conflict (11th century). This process of territorial division in Palestine was accompanied by a profound redefinition of the demographic landscape, directly inherited, from the Canaanite people of the Late Bronze Age. In spite of these factors, a return to political and economic autonomy is one of the major characteristics of these periods. Based on the typological and technological analysis of formally unstudied ceramic materials from the acropolis of Tel Yarmouth, the author's research contributes to a more precise perception of this period, in particular in terms of its chronological evolution. Firmly anchored in chronological continuity, the pottery of this period testifies to the existence of a new codification of the relationships existing between the different regions of Palestine. Despite intrinsic political instability between the region of Palestine, a state of relative equilibrium was maintained during the Iron Age I. Consequently, the author proposes that the term 'mutation' could be used in the place of the more general term 'transition' to define this period, during which socio-political parcelling of territory resulted in the accentuation of local particularities, and which preceded, after a period of slow political gestation, the emergence of the new state of the first millennium BCE.

Michaël Jasmin