| Abstract
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The prevalent historical reconstruction for the Iron I in the central highlands of Jordan ties the process to the Mādabā Plain region (MPR). Based upon comparative ceramic analysis with sites in the highlands of Cisjordan, the MPR is considered to have witnessed the earliest presence of this highland culture in the southern Levant. In particular, the fortified settlement of Tall al `Umayri has been associated with the Israelite tribe of Reuben. According to this view, it is on the basis of the primacy of the Reubenite tribal group that Israel and Yahwism emerged in the highlands of Cisjordan. With the social dynamics inherent to a shifting frontier model as backdrop, this thesis examines ethnic identity in the central highlands of Jordan during the Iron I. As a transitional zone historically contested by both agriculturalists and pastoral nomadic groups, this region witnessed a dynamic process of shifting ethnic identities during this transformative period. The emerging material-cultural evidence from the Mādabā region in general, and Tall Mādabā in particular, is beginning to document the relative homogeneity of the Iron I highland assemblage. Thus, from a material cultural standpoint, the case for demarcating Reubenite/Israelite material culture within the MPR appears difficult to sustain. Furthermore, to single out the Reubenites as the catalyst of a religious (Yahwistic) movement within Transjordan and, subsequently, within the highlands of Cisjordan, is difficult to reconcile with the viewpoint of Reuben and Transjordan as "outsiders" in biblical sources. Therefore, as an alternate model to the prevailing approach based on the primacy of Reuben, I suggest that the Iron I in Transjordan should be viewed within a general highland material-cultural sphere. However, this does not preclude that some tribal groups in the MPR may have had close kinship ties with a larger Israel group, as some biblical and extra-biblical texts indicate. In this respect, the ethnic diversity portrayed in the textual sources reflects the ferment out of which emerged the later polities of the Iron II.
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