The Har Hemar Site: A Northern Outpost on the Desert Margin?

Archaeological fieldwork in the southern Judean Desert has traced an Early Bronze Age ascent and a control site—Har Hemar—situated next to it. The ceramic finds included quantities of northern wares such as North Canaanite Metallic Ware (NCMW) and Khirbet Kerak Ware (KKW). The paper describes the ascent and the site of Har Hemar, and suggests dating their operation to 2800–2700 ± 50 BCE. It proposes that the NCMW represents remains of trade items discarded along the interregional route using the ascent, while the KKW was used mainly by the road controllers residing at Har Hemar. The paper proposes that the latter were foreigners hired by local authorities to guard the road, i.e., an early type of mercenary, and identifies them as KKW-bearing people.