Investigating Iron Age I Highland Settlement

Name the Egyptian monument carved around 1208 BCE that contains the earliest extra-biblical mention of Israel.

The Merneptah Stele (or Israel Stele).

Identify two distinct architectural or material features common to Iron Age I villages in the central highlands.

The four-room (pillared) house, collar-rim storage jars, and plaster-lined water cisterns.

Explain the economic and political crisis in the 12th century BCE known as the Bronze Age Collapse.

Major empires across the eastern Mediterranean fractured, trade networks broke down, Egyptian control over Canaan ended, and lowland Canaanite city-states declined or were destroyed.

Summarize the indigenous Canaanite origin theory for early highland settlers.

Displaced rural populations, pastoralists, and refugees from collapsing lowland Canaanite cities moved into the central highlands and established small agricultural villages, gradually developing a distinct identity.

What does the near absence of pig bones in Iron Age I highland animal refuse suggest to archaeologists?

It suggests specific dietary customs or taboos that differentiated highland settlers from neighboring coastal populations, such as the Philistines, whose sites yield abundant pig bones.

Explain why finding a four-room house or a collar-rim jar at a site does not conclusively prove the inhabitants were Israelites.

These material features were utilitarian responses to highland farming and have been found outside Israelite territory, such as in Transjordanian kingdoms like Ammon and Moab.

Weigh the two scholarly models: Compare the nomad-settlement theory with the internal-Canaanite-collapse theory. State what evidence supports each view.

The nomad theory is supported by early village plans that mirror enclosed nomadic tent encampments and pastoralist life on desert fringes. The internal Canaanite theory is supported by continuous pottery traditions linking Late Bronze lowland ceramics directly to early Iron Age highland types.