Socio-economic Complexity in Chalcolithic Villages: A Re-evaluation in Light of New Excavations

To a large extent, our understanding of the socio-economic system of the Chalcolithic period in the southern Levant is based on excavations of sites in Israel’s northern Negev. While hundreds of sites are known, discoveries from excavations of less than ten large villages are those that have outlined the socio-economic conclusions currently drawn regarding Chalcolithic cultural entities. Discussions in the 1980s regarding the level of complexity in Chalcolithic society ranged from seeing it as a broad egalitarian society to perceiving it as a localized chiefdom. Small excavations in the following decades did not change these perceptions. Recent excavations of several large Chalcolithic villages, however, have now provided much-needed quality data that has changed the status of research and analysis. Information from excavations conducted during the last decade at the Chalcolithic sites of Tel Sheva, Agamim and Kuseife enable a better reassessment of the socio-economic complexity in this period.