L'abandon d'Al-Rawda (Syrie) à la fin du Troisième Millénaire : premières tentatives d'explication

Al-Rawda, which has been excavated by a Franco-Syrian team since 2002, is a new town founded in EBA IV, situated on the confines of sedentary habitation in the Syrian steppe. This town of regional importance belonged to a hierarchical network of sites and maintained relations with the great urban centres of the time. It can be considered as a point of economic and religious focus at a time when central and northern Syria was undergoing considerable developement. The site undoubtedly served as a relay on the steppe on one of the routes linking the Euphrates to western Syria. Founded around 2400 B.C., it was abandoned for good before the end of the Third Millennium. Can a connection be established between its desertion and the hypothesis of a major climatic change, which would have affected the whole of Upper Mesopotamia? The situation of Al-Rawda, in the arid zone, makes the site particularly sensitive to any even minor modifications in the milieu. Now, when the city was founded, imposing problems of an ecological nature were overcome. The very hypothesis of a major climatic change is called in question when we consider the paleo-environmental data. Moreover, the archaeological data shows that the city was abandoned progressively. Another political and socio-economic scenario is put forward. The progressive desertion of Al-Rawda and the sites depending on it might be related to a shift in centres of power and a reorganisation of systems of production on a regional scale. The conjunction of several years of drought, of over-exploitation of the milieu and of a high rise in the population could have played a role in the desertion of the town; however, these do not appear to have been the predominant factors.Castel Corinne. L'abandon d'Al-Rawda (Syrie) à la fin du Troisième Millénaire : premières tentatives d'explication. In: Sociétés humaines et changement climatique à la fin du troisième millénaire: une crise a-t-elle eu lieu en Haute Mésopotamie? Actes du Colloque de Lyon (5-8 décembre 2005) Istanbul : Institut Français d'Études Anatoliennes-Georges Dumézil, 2007. pp. 159-178. (Varia Anatolica, 19