The Early Bronze Age Fortifications At Tell Es-Safi/Gath,Israel

Tell es-Safi/Gath is a multi-period site located on the border between the Judean foothills (Shephelah) and the southern coastal plain in central Israel, which has been subject to survey and excavations over the last two decades. Excavations by Bliss and Macalister in 1899 exposed a fortification system which was dated to the “Jewish period”. In this paper, we present updated data on these fortifications which have led to fresh insights. In two separate excavation areas, we excavated portions of the fortification system that surrounded the site which can now be dated to the EB III of the southern Levant. The EB fortification system influenced the location of later fortifications at the site. The nature of the construction techniques of these fortifications and the character of the settlement which they surrounded suggest that Tell es-Safi/Gath was a major regional urban centre during the EB III and was governed by a centralised administrative hierarchy.     

Marital distance and its geographical orientation in England and Wales, 1979

"A representative sample of just over one thousand marriages solemnized in England and Wales in 1979 is used to analyse the distribution of the distances between the partners' addresses at marriage....according to various social and demographic variables also derived from the same source. Comparison with other surveys suggests that marriages in which both partners give the same address are likely to be those of couples who cohabit before marriage. Partners who work in unskilled manual occupations, or who marry with a civil ceremony, or who have been married before, appear more likely than the average to cohabit. Of the marriages where different addresses are given, about one-half bring together partners living within 5 km of each other." It is found that "there is a strong relationship between high social class and increased marital distance, and also between greater marital distance and older ages up to about age 40. Longer-range marriages show clear evidence of geographical orientation, the effect being more pronounced at longer distances. This is attributed to variations in population density over the country and geographical constraints on settlement patterns."