Purpose and Background of the Research
Our current understanding of the Near East falls into two extremes: ancient civilizations as romantic images, and the Islam as a less familiar geo-political entity. In this sense, it is highly vulnerable and far from comprehensive. Among others, the nomadic society, another aspect of the Near Eastern society, is trivialized into one of historical, geographical and ethnological landscapes and, for this reason, not subject to full-scale human and social sciences with the only exception of anthropological surveys. Archaeology is no exception to this. The only way for breaking through this situation is to step into the drylands outside the Fertile Crescent and patiently collect up the archaeological footprints of ancient nomadic tribes.
This study aims to: 1) reorganize the study of pastoral nomadization in the Near East from the conjecture-level argument based on indirect information from the urban-rural society within the Fertile Crescent to the substantive discussion associated with specific site names and precise dates; and, in so doing, 2) shed new light on the historical peculiarity of the Near Eastern society, tracing back to the formation process of nomadic tribes.
