These essays were written in honour of William G Dever, doyen of Syro-Palestinian archaeology, and Professor Emeritus of Near Eastern Archaeology and Anthropology at the University of Arizona, where he was Professor from 1975 until his retirement in 2001. The contents include: Bronze Age Rural Economic Transitions in the Jordan Valley (Steven E Falconer, et al); Merenptah's Inscription and Reliefs and the Origin of Israel (Michael G Hasel); Slouching toward Beersheva: Chalcolithic Mortuary Practices in Local and Regional Context (Alexander H Joffe); Four-Room Structures at Late Bronze/Iron I Age Hill Country Workstations (Gloria London); The Birth of the Ancestors: The Meanings of Human Figurines in Near Eastern Neolithic Villages (Jonathan B Mabry); Pottery Production and Demand in a Middle Bronze Age Levantine Village: Ceramic Specialization and Rural Development (Bonnie Magness-Gardiner); Israel on the Horizon: The Iron I Settlement of the Galilee (Beth Alpert Nakhai); The Emergence of Ammon: A View of the Rise of Iron Age Polities from the Other Side of the Jordan (Randall W Younker).