The Early Bronze Age in the southern Levant was characterized by a profound shift in lifeways, and is often identified as a period of “urbanization.” This research identifies human skeletal changes as the result of cultural innovation and developments in this time period. This project is unique in its inclusion of skeletal material from one of only two sites with burials from the height of the Early Bronze Age. Three hypotheses are tested relating to increasing sedentism and agricultural intensification during this period at the site of Bab edh-Dhra’ in Jordan . First, I test the hypothesis that these changes resulted in increased dental pathology. Second, a change in daily activity patterns is predicted. I also test the hypothesis that the later Early Bronze II-III inhabitants were not new immigrants to the area. The Early Bronze Age in this study is represented by Early Bronze IA (3150-2950 BC) shaft tombs and by the people buried in Charnel House A22 from the Early Bronze II-III (2800-2300 BC) town site of Bab edh-Dhra’.
Dental health indicators, including caries, calculus, antemortem tooth loss, and dental wear, suggested a decrease in abrasive foods and increase in carbohydrate consumption from EBIA to EBII-III. This was most likely related to greater reliance on agricultural foodstuffs and intensified fruit production and consumption. There was no change in the prevalence of dental caries, and it is most likely that the EBIA peoples were engaging in at least small-scale agriculture. In general, both groups were probably cultivating plants, herding animals, making secondary products, and collecting wild foodstuffs.
Overall, degenerative joint disease either stayed the same or declined from EBIA to EBII-III. There was no real difference in the knee, but some decline in osteoarthritis in the elbow. This may indicate that although there was no archaeological evidence of a settlement in EBIA, that people were practicing agriculture and engaging in similar activities to those in EBII-III. Articular modifications in the hip did not change from one time period to the next. Joint alterations in the ankle and toes, however, suggest some kind of additional stress in the lower right limb in EBIA that is not seen in EBII-III.
Finally, there was no evidence that the EBII-III inhabitants were not the descendents of the earlier EBIA people. Cranial non-metric trait frequencies suggested that the EBIA group may have been more heterogeneous, but they also represented numerous family tombs, as opposed to the one large charnel house from EBII-III.
In conclusion, there was evidence of diet change between EBIA and EBII-III at Bab edh-Dhra’, indicative of increased reliance on grains and fruit. There was also evidence of a change in daily activity patterns in the lower limb. There was not enough evidence to suggest that the people in EBII-III were new migrants into the region. Therefore, the changes seen reflect changes in lifestyle and behavior, most likely as the result of intensified agriculture and increasing “urbanization” from EBIA to EBII-III in the southern Levant.