After Collapse: The Regeneration of Complex Societies

3. Amorites, Onagers, and Social Reorganization in Middle Bronze Age Syria

Amorites, Onagers, and Social Reorganization in Middle Bronze Age Syria John J. Nichols and Jill A.Weber If societal collapse and regeneration occur as a result of the failure and reorganization of regional systems that structure networks of people and places, how are these processes manifested at individual communities within those systems? In this chapter, we address this question using evidence from Tell Umm el-Marra, the largest settlement in northern Syria’s Jabbul Plain (fig. 3.1) during much of the Bronze Age (ca. 2700–1200 bc). In the Jabbul region and elsewhere in Syria, collapse at the end of the third millennium bc entailed failure of regional economic and political networks, resulting in the disintegration of states into smaller political entities (Schwartz, chapter 1). Because integration of institutions and social groupings in complex societies is largely provided by political structures (Kaufman 1988:220), their dissolution compels local settlements to stabilize at lower levels of differentiation, a process Shmuel Eisenstadt (1964:379) terms “regression.” After the loss of integrative coherence afforded by a political superstructure, the constituent institutions underlying urban complexity may survive independently, with varying degrees of independence and cohesion (Eisenstadt 1964:378; Yoffee 1988b:15). Such regression into locally stable societies (the “nearly decomposable systems” described by Herbert Simon [1965:70]) may provide a basis for the revitalization of complexity (Eisenstadt 1964:379). The evidence from Umm el-Marra suggests that while local regression follows regional collapse, continuity combined with flexibility in local economic institutions enhances the stability of the reorganized polities and provides a framework for a return to regional complexity. 3 Figure 3.1 Map of Syria with Jabbul Plain inset (after Schwartz et al. 2003, fig. 1). 40 John Nichols and Jill Weber Historical Context: Centralization and Decentralization in Syria in theThird and Second Millennia BC In the ancient Near East, virtually all complex social systems experienced cycles of centralization and decentralization (Adams 1978; Kohl 1978; Yoffee 1995). Only rarely were Syro-Mesopotamian regions unified under a single hegemon. Rather, competition among multiple urban centers resulted in the rise and fall of given polities, similar to the situation Miriam Stark describes for the lower Mekong basin (chapter 10). Much of the final period of Early Bronze Age Syria, or EB IV (ca. 2500–2000 bc), is characterized by urban nucleation and state building.A few powerful regional polities emerged as virtual hegemons in northern Syria, from Mari (modern Hariri) in the south, to Ebla (modern Mardikh) in the west, to Nagar (modern Brak) in the east. Within this nexus of powerful urban centers, weaker cities were integrated into a network of economic and political exchange. In the process , these second-tier cities—such as Umm el-Marra—augmented their own internal cohesion and complexity. Ebla was the dominant power in western Syria; competition between Ebla and Mari resulted in the shifting allegiances of those weaker polities, as reflected in administrative texts from Ebla and elsewhere (Archi 1998; Archi and Biga 2003). Loyalty to one or another hegemon, however, often benefited client polities with status and wealth (Pearson 1997). Umm el-Marra, provisionally identified as ancient Tuba (Catagnoti 1992; Matthiae 1980), became the largest community in the Jabbul Plain by virtue of its strategic location along major routes of communication and commerce (Curvers and Schwartz 1997:203–4; Tefnin 1980:91–92). Both the presence of a ruling elite at Tuba and its subservient position vis-à-vis Ebla are indicated by Eblaite textual evidence. Despite such political asymmetry, diplomatic ties and interdynastic marriages cemented links between cities while establishing filial networks among polities of differing rank. Competition among cities was continual, as were changes in alliances prompted by military conquest (Astour 1992). One of the most disruptive of such conquests was that by the Akkadian empire from its center in Mesopotamia circa 2300 bc. This conquest resulted in the disruption or termination of the ruling dynasty at Ebla and the presence of Akkadian rulers in the Khabur Valley of eastern Syria at Brak and perhaps at Shekhna (modern Leilan), and at Urkesh (modern Mozan), to name a few important cities. The Akkadian empire collapsed about a century later, coincident with a reduction in dense populations in parts Social Reorganization in Middle Bronze Age Syria 41 of northeastern Syria (Meijer 1986; Weiss and Courty 1993), though some centers, such as Urkesh and Nagar, persisted. In western Syria, urbanism continued unabated for a century or...