Tell el-Hayyat, the focus of this volume, is situated in the Jordan Rift Valley approximately two kilometres east of the Jordan River on the first terrace above the present floodplain. This work details the authors' investigations of agrarian economy andecology as they illuminate the roles of rural communities in the larger context of the first urbanized civilizations. The study explores the ways in which small farming villages like Tell el-Hayyat contributed and responded to the rise and fall of Bronze Age town life in the southern Levant. A rural perspective is particularly appropriate for this region amid its long legacy of sedentary agriculture, dynamic urban-rural relations, and their ecological consequences.