Contested Peripheries” in World Systems Theory: Megiddo and the Jezreel Valley as a Test Case*

Abstract

The term “contested periphery” was recently coined by Mitchell Allen for use in his 1997 UCLA dissertation concerned with Philistia, the Neo-Assyrians, and World systems theory (Allen 1997: 49-51, 320-21, Fig. 1.4; cf. also Berquist 1995a, 1995b). Allen identi?ed “contested peripheries” as “border zones where different systems intersect” (Allen 1997: 320). Chase-Dunn and Hall immediately adopted this term and de?ned it more formally as “a peripheral region for which one or more core regions compete” (Chase-Dunn and Hall 1997: 37).