ABSTRACT
This article will attempt to synthesise the considerable cultural remains from the Early Bronze IV (hereafter EB IV) period at Khirbet Iskander, Jordan, with three overarching goals in mind: i) to present a view of the people who chose to occupy a well-established urban tell site on the Central Transjordanian Plateau rather than a new site, or a pastoral-nomadic site in the post-EB III period; 2) to set that viewpoint in the context of three well-preserved phases at the site, and, finally 3) to argue for an alternative, albeit minority, view of EB IV people. The sum of our work and research illuminates a community that in all respects — other than the ‘normative’ view or current model of EB IV culture — epitomises ‘the last gasp’ of Early Bronze Age traditions, or the vestiges of just plain ‘city-life’.
