One of the most significant aspects of cultural variation that world archaeology has revealed is the many different forms of social complexity among ancient and more recent premodern societies. Although this exposes the shortcomings of older evolutionary approaches, Levantine and broader Near Eastern archaeology remains relatively inflexible and conservative in the perception of social complexity in the archaeological record. A necessary association between complexity and monumentality remains prevalent, whereby monumentality is understood as an important operative cog in the complexity machine. Conversely, complexity can only be read in the archaeological record where monumentality is present. This paper seeks to untie this necessary association by demonstrating that complexity without monumentality occurred in societies of the biblical period that were fully or partly nomadic and otherwise lacked a clear cultural conception of monumentality as central to the ideology of political authority and structure. This is done through the presentation of early Iron Age Edom and its implications for the understanding of the neighboring United Monarchy of ancient Israel.

世界考古学揭示的文化变异最重要的方面之一是古代和近代前现代社会中多种不同形式的社会复杂性。尽管这暴露了旧进化方法的缺点，但黎凡特和更广泛的近东考古学在考古记录中对社会复杂性的看法仍然相对僵化和保守。复杂性和纪念性之间的必要联系仍然普遍存在，纪念性被理解为复杂性机器中的重要操作齿轮。相反，复杂性只能在存在纪念性的考古记录中解读。本文试图通过证明圣经时期的社会中出现了没有纪念性的复杂性来解开这种必要的联系，这些社会完全或部分游牧，否则缺乏清晰的纪念性文化概念作为政治权威和结构意识形态的核心。这是通过介绍铁器时代早期的以东及其对理解邻近的古代以色列联合君主国的影响来实现的。