This volume is a tour de force that exceeds any predecessor in its theoretical scope. Even more important than its intriguing syntheses are its probing questions, its analytical categories and tools, and its challenges to easy assumptions. Boer’s pursuit of theoretical integration, however, sometimes leads him to overgeneralize. He staunchly maintains, for example, that arable land was plentiful in all times and places in ancient Southwest Asia. Comprehensive archaeological surveys of the southern Levant tell a different story. The Iron II population was more than double that of the Bronze Age or of Iron I. The highlands particularly witnessed the occupation of marginal niches. Population pressure on arable land was a reality in Iron II Palestine. Similarly, the many standardized wine amphorae recovered from two eighth-century BCE. Phoenician ships sunk off the Philistine coast contradict Boer’s repeated insistence that there is no evidence for long-distance trade in bulk goods.

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关于理论与数据之舞的一些编舞笔记

这本书的理论范围超过了任何前作。比其引人入胜的综合更重要的是它的探索性问题、它的分析类别和工具，以及它对简单假设的挑战。然而，波尔对理论整合的追求有时会导致他过度概括。例如，他坚定地认为，古代西南亚的所有时代和地方都有丰富的耕地。黎凡特南部的综合考古调查讲述了一个不同的故事。Iron II 的人口是青铜时代或 Iron I 的两倍多。高地特别见证了边缘壁龛的占领。可耕地的人口压力在 Iron II 巴勒斯坦成为现实。类似地，许多标准化的葡萄酒双耳瓶从公元前 8 世纪的两个时期中恢复。