Archaeology In Jordan

Crossing Jordan' examines the peoples and cultures that have travelled across Jordan from antiquity to the present. The book offers a critical analysis of recent discoveries and archaeological models in Jordan and highlights the significant contribution of North American archaeologists to the field.

This volume will fill the demand for a general introduction to the archaeology of Jordan. It covers the full range of archaeology in Jordan from the Palaeolithic through to the end of the Ottoman period. The volume contains 15 chapters as chronological summaries of these principal archaeological periods, as well as an introductory chapter by the volume editor. The primary intent of this volume, which is a shortened and updated version of The Archaeology of Jordan published by Sheffield Academic Press in 2001, is to provide an introductory textbook for students of archaeology in general and Levantine and Near Eastern Archaeology in particular as well as a companion volume for interested amateurs and tourists. Russell Adams is Post-Doctoral Research and Teaching Fellow, Department of Anthropology, at McMaster University, Canada.

James A. Sauer was for many years the Director of the American Center of Oriental Research in Amman, Jordan, leading it to the preeminent place it now occupies as a research institution dedicated to the archaeology and history of Transjordan. This volume honors him, with more than 50 contributions from colleagues and friends. With this volume, the Harvard Semitic Museum inaugurates a new series entitled "Studies in the Archaeology and History of the Levant."

Jordan is a country with a very long and fascinating history that is strikingly documented by archaeology. A major introduction to this region, detailing each phase of Jordan's archaeology and history in a series of chapters specially written by leading experts, this title also includes sections on individual topics, such as ecology and architecture. Illustrated with numerous line drawings, maps and photographs, this comprehensive reference work should be useful for anyone engaged with the history and civilization of this region of the Middle East.

Archaeology has been growing in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan as an academic subject in the schools, as an Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology at the new Yarmouk University, as the on going publishing and digging and preservation efforts of the Jordanian Department of Antiquities, now 70 years old, as growing numbers of foreign expeditions dig into Jordanian soil. The essays and reports in this volume share the experience and finds of several excavation and study efforts carried out with the Jordanian Department personnel who contribute to these studies.

Situated south of the Dead Sea, near the famous Nabatean capital of Petra, the Faynan region in Jordan contains the largest deposits of copper ore in the southern Levant. The Edom Lowlands Regional Archaeology Project (ELRAP) takes an anthropological-archaeology approach to the deep-time study of culture change in one of the Old World's most important locales for studying technological development. Using innovative digital tools for data recording, curation, analyses, and dissemination, the researchers focused on ancient mining and metallurgy as the subject of surveys and excavations related to the Iron Age (ca. 1200-500 BCE), when the first local, historical state-level societies appeared in this part of the eastern Mediterranean basin. This comprehensive and important volume challenges the current scholarly consensus concerning the emergence and historicity of the Iron Age polity of biblical Edom and some of its neighbors, such as ancient Israel. Excavations and radiometric dating establish a new chronology for Edom, adding almost 500 more years to the Iron Age, including key periods of biblical history when David, Solomon, and the Egyptian pharaoh Shoshenq I are alleged to have interacted with Edom. Included is a 7 gigabyte DVD with over 55,000 files of additional data and photographs from the project.

Stands of relict vegetation, soil horizons, and sedimentary deposits along with archaeological evidence suggest that during certain time spans within the past twenty millennia, Jordan was endowed with moister and more vegetated landscapes than the ones we see today. In this detailed volume, Carlos E. Cordova synthesizes diverse information on multiple topics to provide a comprehensive view of the changes in the Jordanian landscape and the many ways it has been affected by human habitation and the forces of nature. Cordova focuses on geoarchaeological and cultural ecological aspects of research, presenting data from physical, chemical, and biological sources. He examines the changing influence of climate, vegetation, and hunting opportunities on cultural exploitation tactics, as well as the effects of the growing population and agriculture on the environment. Cordova argues that an interdisciplinary approach to studying the area is crucial to achieving a true understanding of JordanÕs changing landscape. Chapter topics include approaches to the study of ancient Jordanian landscapes in the Near Eastern context; the physical scene; endowed landscapes of the woodlands; the encroaching drylands; the current and future state of the paleoecological and geoarchaeological record; patterns of millennial landscape change; and the process of interpreting millennial landscape change. The text is abundantly illustrated with photos, line illustrations, tables, and maps, providing a valuable assessment of archaeological developments over the prehistory and history of what today is the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. This volume will be especially welcomed by scholars interested in the archaeology, history, and geography of Jordan, the Levant, and the Near East and by field-school students working on archaeological projects in Jordan.

The year 2008 marks the 40th anniversary of Mabada Plains Project archaeological research in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. The Madaba Plains Project is one of the longest-lived, continuously running archaeological excavation projects in the Middle East. Spanning four decades, the project, with its beginnings at Tall Hisban in the late sixties, has engaged 1,500 participants, produced scores of publications and spawned a dozen other projects. Its legacy includes being one of the first major Near Eastern archaeology projects to adopt a multi-millennial, regional approach; to incorporate ethnoarchaeology and environmental studies; to construct data around a food-systems' approach; and to computerize procedures for archaeological data acquisition and analysis, thus helping advance both the theoretical underpinnings and the field methods of archaeology in the southern Levant and beyond. Madaba Plains Project directors, wishing to celebrate this major scientific and historical milestone, have produced this anniversary volume which: highlights the value of ongoing collaborative research across the region of central Jordan, attempting to explain life and survival from the Bronze ages through the Islamic and early modern periods and features the latest results from ongoing research; enlivens the discussion by hearing from major scholars in the field who, in the process of assessing the contributions of the project to the archaeology of the southern Levant, broaden the discussion in the context of ancient Near Eastern archaeological research; and, expands the horizons of the project's research by presenting the ever enlarging number and extent of projects conducted by dig directors once on staff with the Madaba Plains Project, thereby taking readers all over Jordan and beyond.