The Excavations at Rekhes Nafha 396 in the Negev Highlands,Israel.

In order to provide more information on the socioeconomic organization of mobile pastoralists in the Early Bronze Age and Early Bronze Age IV/Middle Bronze Age I (EB IV/MB I) periods, excavations were conducted at the site of Rekhes Nafha 396 in the Negev Highlands, Israel. The fieldwork was carried out in 1993, 1994, and 1995. This project's methodological and theoretical approaches for excavating a pastoral habitation site are outlined at the beginning of this paper, followed by a report of the excavations carried out in architectural Units i through 3. The fieldwork identified occupations at the site in the Early Bronze Age, the EB IV/MB I, and Early Islamic periods. The excavations of Rekhes Nafha 396 reveal a complex pastoral nomadic system linking animal husbandry with small craft production in the Early Bronze Age. A working hypothesis is that inhabitants of this site engaged in a trinket trade with the population of Tel Arad. There is no evidence to suggest that Rekhes Nafha 396's inhabitants participated in the Early Bronze Age copper trade between Tel Arad and southern Sinai. The petrographic study of the EB IV/MB I pottery, combined with the settlement pattern in the Hat Nafha survey map, provide potential evidence of seasonal occupations in this part of the Negev Highlands. The find of a copper ingot fragment, together with the results of the petrographic analysis of the pottery, attest that the inhabitants of Rekhes Nafha 396 participated in a regional economy that operated throughout the southern Levant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]