Middle Bronze period

It is increasingly clear that we must abandon the idea that nomadism, in one of its several manifestations, represented an inevitable form of society for all of those who spoke a Semitic language. The environment in which they lived has always favoured pastoralism. Urban and sedentary societies could, however, have been directly involved in the transhumance of their flocks, without leaving much space for tribes with a dimorphic way of life, such as those known from the texts of Mari in the Middle Bronze period. The palace administration of Ebla, for example, controlled through its officials approximately 100,000 to 130,000 sheep and goats and more than 10,000 heads of cattle. This did not, however, mean that pastoralism was the dominant element in the economy of those states. 

People have long defined civilizations in terms of the materials societies have used to build and make objects. Historians often divide human history into periods such as the Old, Middle, and New Stones Ages the Bronze Age the Iron Age and, much later on in history, the Age of Plastics. 

Landscape and Human Interaction in the Middle Habur Drainage from the Neolithic Period to the Bronze Age. In Espace natural, espace habite en Syrie du Nord (l(P-2 millenaires av.J.-C.), edited by M. Fortin and O. Aurenche, 43-54. Toronto The Canadian Society for Mesopotamian Studies. 

Okse, T. 2005. Early Bronze Age Chamber Tomb Complexes at Gre Virike (Period IIA) on the Middle Euphrates. Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 339 21-46. 

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