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The Iron Age in Jordan saw the settlement of a variety of population groups or “tribes” in the arable parts of the Jordanian plateau and their gradual coalescence into formal “national” states with their own monarchies and governmental bureaucracies. Although the Jordan Valley and the northern plateau (north of Wadi Zarqa) had been constantly and relatively heavily settled throughout the Bronze Age, the plateau south of the Wadi Zarqa had been comparatively empty during the Middle and Late Bronze Ages. Settlement began again in the Amman region toward the end of the Late Bronze Age; in the Karak region during Iron Age I; and in the Tafila and Aqabah regions during the second half of Iron II. Settlement thus spread gradually in a southward direction throughout the Iron Age.