ABSTRACT
It is appropriate in a volume dedicated to the work of North American archaeologists at sites in Jordan to highlight contributions to the scholarly debate on the Early Bronze IV period (ca. 2300–2000 bce), the so-called Dark Age at the end of the Early Bronze Age. The authors’ work at Khirbet Iskander continues to uncover exceptional archaeological remains that are providing a new lens through which to view this long-time controversial age. Thanks to the work at Khirbet Iskander (and a host of other sites, see below), a re-evaluation of this enigmatic period following the demise of cities at the end of Early Bronze III, ca. 2300 bce, has been necessary. The post-urban EB IV period has been a subject of controversy ever since 1947, when G. Ernest Wright first identified it, based, to a great extent, on the site of Bab edh-Dhra in Jordan. Since that time, the period has been described as a ‘dark age’, a ‘pastoral-nomadic interlude’, a rural period; there has been no agreement as to whether it continued, or represented a complete break from, EB III tradition. In effect, since Wright’s original insight that it was the ‘last gasp of the Early Bronze Age’, this period has seemingly defied scholarly consensus or agreement (see Richard 1987 for a history of the controversy).
