The workshop “People on the Move: Framework, Means, and Impact of Mobility across the East Mediterranean Region in the 8th to 6th Century BC,” held at the University of Basel in Switzerland from 3-6 August 2015, which forms the basis of this volume, addressed the question of how the increased cross-regional mobility of people and commodities in the wake of the Kushite, Neo-Assyrian, Neo-Babylonian, and early Achaemenid expansions into the eastern Mediterranean affected travellers, the communities they left behind, and the communities that received them.

As demonstrated by the papers published here, the diversity of the sources this period and place requires a large number of specializations, both within the various area studies and regarding cross-regional connectivity.