Early Islamic Palestine: Toward a More Fine-Tuned Recognition of Settlement Patterns and Land Uses in Town and Country

Abstract

This article concentrates on the outlining of major settlement forms and land uses in Early Islamic Palestine and some of the social and demographic dynamics related to their physical, functional and hierarchic evolution throughout the 7th to 11th centuries. It provides a fresh and at times revised viewpoint concerning these themes and others, by using historical and mainly archaeological data related to a wide selection of urban, rural and other site forms throughout the country. These data show that the various natural and human agents that induced change between the 630s and the eve of the Crusades affected, either positively or negatively, the structural and hierarchic development of virtually every settlement, and that the best way to describe settlement and demographic dynamics in Early Islamic Palestine is as multifaceted continuity in a rapidly changing world.