■　Purpose　■ Method of Research The aim of this research is, with a key-word “tribalism,” a critical concept to understand the Middle Eastern cities, to clarify its historical importance with specific archaeological examples by going back to the process of formation of prehistoric settled societies/tribal societies, and tracing the process of transforming into the co-existence of tribal societies and cities, or inclusion into cities, or separation from the cities In other words, the aim of this research is to clarify the historical uniqueness of the Middle Eastern societies which co-existed and linked with tribal communities throughout time. To pursue this task, first, we will select the site of a city or a settlement in the Bishri mountains as a core site, and carry out fixed point survey research by all the planed research groups. Throughout the project, we will grasp the cultural transition of this area in chronological order. Concurrently, we will conduct field research of the circumference area, and a small scale short term survey research on all the other sites related to the core site. Then, based on the comparison between those two efforts, we will clarify, in specific, the process which the circumferential tribal communities were incorporated into the city, or the process which the tribal communities were alienated from the city, or the process which they co-existed. Above is the basic approach of this project. We examine different issues behind the main topic, too. For example, an issue of natural environment, movement of tribes and its accompanying friction or conciliation recorded in the clay tablets, cultural transformation such as architectural styles, diets, and fine arts, and physical anthropology such as the transformation of the human biological features. The core point to organically integrate these researches in different fields, is the concept of “tribalism,” as already mentioned. 　   Copyright (C) 2005-2007 Kokushikan University