16. The Decline of Egyptian Empire, Refugees, and Social Change in the Southern Levant, ca . 1200-1000 BCE Aaron A. Burke 1 Introduction The closing years of the New Kingdom Empire in Canaan (ca. 1200-1100 BCE) reveal a stiffening of opposition to Egyptian rule by a wide array of groups. The destruction and abandonment of many sites in the lowlands of Canaan during the 12 th century BCE that resulted from these conficts was accompanied by the appearance of dispersed settlements in the highlands. Together these events reveal a period of turmoil that contextualizes the displacement of many of the region’s inhabitants and their resettlement in adjacent highlands. Many hallmarks of Canaanite communities during the 12 th and 11 th centuries reveal continuity and adaptation through this period of signifcant social transformation that are suggestive of endogenous developments, which are best situated within the social context of Canaan’s transition away from Egyptian rule. Understanding the broader context of these changes enables us to consider more accurate models for the social evolution of Canaan that bridge the so-called ‘dark age’ between the decline of the Late Bronze Age and the emergence of new communities like Israel during the early Iron Age. A critical, yet overlooked, aspect of this social transformation is the identifcation of dispersed, highland communities within Canaan that, in the wake of the collapse of urban centres, were likely comprised of displaced persons or refugees. These circumstances provide the social, political, and cultural contexts for understanding the emergence of ancient Israel during the Iron I (ca. 1200-1000 BCE), but especially during the 11 th century. 1. The study of refugees in the Ancient Near East 1.1. Terminology and its signifcance The scope of the present investigation of forced migration, which could reasonably include the experiences of refugees, exiles, captives, and deportees, is restricted to the consideration of the archaeological and textual evidence for refugees at the end of the Late Bronze Age in Canaan. While the defnition for refugees in the U.N. Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, Article 1(2), 1951 accords reasonably well with the range of potential experiences in antiquity and so it is adopted here 2 , it is simpler, however, to recognize refugees broadly as “risk-initiated, self migrants” (Burke 2012: 265). Of fundamental essence to the refugee experience is fight, which can be qualifed as anticipatory (i.e. in anticipation of a threat) or acute (i.e. under immediate threat) (Kunz 1973: 131-132), while different groupings of departing refugees are described as waves, distinct arrivals of groups are referred to as vintages (Kunz 1973: 137). One aim of this study is to demonstrate how these elements are essential in the identifcation of refugees within the socio-political and historical context of the end of the Egyptian New Kingdom Empire in Canaan. It should be noted that, in difference to modern studies of refugees that are concerned with addressing humanitarian needs, historical and archaeological studies will, naturally, be concerned primarily with identifying and correlating archaeological phenomena with particular aspects or moments within the 1 Department of Near Eastern Languages & Cultures, and The Cotsen Institute of Archaeology, UCLA (aaburke@ucla.edu). 2 The U.N. Convention defnes a refugee as ‘an individual who owing to well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable, or owing to such fear, unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country; or, who, not having a nationality or being outside the country of his former habitual residence as a result of such events, is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to return to it’.