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30JOURNAL OF HEBREW SCRIPTURESassociation with some architecture shows that some sites were occupiedin the period following the fall of Jerusalem. But moving beyond roughepochal observations is difficult. The conclusion that a substantialpercentage of the early sixth century population survived overlooks ahost of social processes, including a dramatic decrease in production,which could also account for these ceramic continuities. And theconclusion that this unbroken tradition was centered in the northernhighlands of Judah cannot be sustained from this ceramic presentation.Ephraim Stern is rightly cautious about any attempt to move from thisbroadly dated assemblage to conclusions about demography, socialorganization, or the details of sixth century history (2001: 342-44).2. ARCHAEOLOGICAL SURVEYS AND EXCAVATIONIn most cases, the presentation of the survey data in this book parallelsthat described by many others and summarized by Stern in 2001. Mostof the country was destroyed by the Babylonian army. Even Jerusalemdid not recover from its thorough destruction (contra Barkay 1994:105-106). By the second quarter of the sixth century, most regions of Judahwere virtually empty. Our author reiterates the consensus opinion thatthis population collapse was either the direct work of the Babyloniansor related to the economic disintegration which the followed theirconquest. In three regions, the Negev, Benjamin, and the Judahitehighlands, different processes were at work.In the Negev, a “wave of devastation” overtook the thrivingBeersheba valley in the sixth century to the extent that the populationdeclined by 75%. This destruction has typically been connected in someway to biblical accounts of Edomite treachery during the fall ofJerusalem. In addition, some scholars point to an increasing volume ofepigraphic evidence for Edomite presence, whether in the form of anostracon from Arad warning of Edomite advances or in the form ofnames with Qaus as the theophoric element (Beit-Arieh 1995: 311-314).Lipschits, by and large, discounts the inferences commonly drawn fromthese records and prefers to begin his reconstruction in the relativesilence of II Kings. Our author argues that the loss of central authoritydisrupted the balance between the settled and more transient groupsand that the region gradually declined. It is not clear who these transientgroups were, except that they were not related to Edom. In this section,our author adopts a much more cautious stance regarding theimplications of ceramics. In particular, “Edomite” pottery forms mightnot be directly linked to “Edomite” people. While these cautions arewise, it is not clear what positive evidence exists for placing thedestructions of the Negev settlements later in the sixth century. Itseems that this perspective of gradual decline is merely an elaborationof Finkelstein’s skepticism (1992) about connections between sites likeQitmit and Horvat Uza and the rise of Edom.Turning to Benjamin, scholars agree that there is evidence ofcontinued occupation following the events of 586. The Babylonians didnot devastate this region. At Tell en Nasbeh, biblical Mizpah, Jeff Zornhas heroically reconstructed plans of the sixth century city fromMcCown’s severely flawed excavations. But given the records availableto Zorn, it is impossible to be too precise. For instance, were the sixth