THE MEGALITHIC MANIFESTATION OF THE URBAN PROCESS AT THE GOLAN DURING THE EARLY BRONZE AGE

Abstract

The Golan is one of the most unfamiliar landscapes in terms of archaeological research of the Early Bronze Age in the land of Israel. So is most of the area that is known as the 'Bashan' and 'Horan', located east and south-east to the Golan. This article deals with one of the most outstanding manifestations of the urbanization process that took place in the Golan: megalithic monuments that appear in various shapes. Huge forified settlements,that were known as 'enclosures’were another characteristic of this urbanization process. The analysis of the excavation's results at Leviah, one of these 'enclosures', and the unique complex at Rogem Hiri, as well as survey results comprise the data-base of the present endeavor.

The urbanization process that took place at the southern-central Golan had many common cultural affinities with similar processes in other southern Levantine regions, like the Jordan valley, but was best connected to the area east of the Golan, that is till today Terra Incognita.

The megalithic manifestatio of the urbanization process during the EBA is an integrated research that examined the data accumulated to date from archaeological fieldwork in the Golan, along with theoretical issues concerning megalithic monuments as rellected in the Post Processual Approach in archaeology. This way we tried to understand the meaning and the significance of those monuments in human societies that lived in the Golan during the third millennium BC.