The desert, the sown and the egyptian colony

On the basis of a growing body of Egyptian Naqada III / Dynasty 0-1 objects in the Negev Highlands it is suggested that: 1. Some of the Negev Highlands sites, which thus far were approximately dated to the Early Bronze Age (henceforth EB) in general, may be attributed with confidence to the end of the fourth millennium BC (EB1b2, see Table 1 below). 2. These pastoral sites had clear connections with the Egyptian colony bordering them. 3. This is the earliest testimony for relations between urbanized and pastoral nomad entities in the southern Levant.