Western Harra Survey Project (original) (raw)
Akkermans, P. M. M. G. (ed). Landscapes of Survival: The Archaeology and Epigraphy of Jordan's North-Eastern Desert and Beyond, 2020
The climatically varied Syro-Levantine steppes feature complex dynamics of past human occupation that vary greatly across the region in terms of scale, time periods, and archaeological remains. In particular, the Late Chalcolithic (LC) and Early Bronze Age (EBA) (c. 4400‑2100 BC) saw urbanism in north-eastern Syria, smaller-scale sedentism in central Syria, and the decline of longstanding occupation in north-eastern Jordan. Despite this, the challenges faced by prehistoric populations in these uncertain environments would have been very similar; thus it is reasonable to propose that some of their solutions were also. The region-wide project 'Human Adaptation in Climatically Marginal Environments of late-fifth to third millennium BC Syria and Jordan' takes a holistic approach to investigating these arid and semi-arid regions to determine their appeal to past populations, and the effects of the natural and anthropogenic environment on settlement morphologies and societies. It uses a variety of past and present remote sensing and ground truth data, a vital part of which is the author's 'Western Harra Survey', south of Jawa in the northern badia of Jordan. The first fieldwork season, conducted October-November 2015, identified large quantities of lithic material at numerous sites, a handful of which were likely occupied during the LC/EBA, as well as potential links to raw chert material sources, adding another facet to the appeal of the harrah to past populations, on top of the well-established arguments for the exploitation of pasture land resources. Additionally, a typological seriation of the morphology of sites known as 'wheels' was commenced, which appears to be linked to different site uses and/or periods of occupation. Establishing these connections is crucial to allow mapping occupation dynamics across the greater region and comparisons with areas in Syria and beyond.
The Cyrenaican Prehistory Project 2012: the sixth season of excavations in the Haua Fteah cave
Libyan Studies, 2013
The paper reports on the sixth season of fieldwork of the Cyrenaican Prehistory Project (CPP) undertaken in September 2012. As in the spring 2012 season, work focussed on the Haua Fteah cave and on studies of materials excavated in previous seasons, with no fieldwork undertaken elsewhere in the Gebel Akhdar. An important discovery, in a sounding excavated below the base of McBurney's 1955 Deep Sounding (Trench S), is of a rockfall or roof collapse conceivably dating to the cold climatic regime of Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 6 (globally dated to c. 190-130 ka) but more likely the result of a seismic event within MIS 5 (globally dated to c. 130-80 ka). The sediments and associated molluscan fauna in Trench S and in Trench D, a trench being cut down the side of the Deep Sounding, indicate that this part of the cave was at least seasonally waterlogged during the accumulation, probably during MIS 5, of the ~6.5 m of sediment cut through by the Deep Sounding. Evidence for human frequentation of the cave in this period is more or less visible depending on how close the trench area was to standing water as it fluctuated through time. Trench M, the trench being cut down the side of McBurney's Middle Trench, has now reached the depth of the latest Middle Stone Age or Middle Palaeolithic (Levalloiso-Mousterian)
The paper reports on the third (2009) season of fieldwork of the Cyrenaican Prehistory Project, and on further results from the analysis of materials collected in the previous (2007 and 2008) fieldwork. Sediments in a 14 m-deep core drilled beside the McBurney trench provide an invaluable overview of the overall stratigraphic sequence, including at depths reached by the 1950s Deep Sounding but not yet investigated by the present project. Sampling of newly-exposed faces of the original excavation trench for dating (14C, ESR, OSL, U-series) and palaeoenvirommental indicators continued. Excavation was begun of sediments assigned to the early Holocene Libyco-Capsian (McBurney's Layer X), and of Pre-Aurignacian layers beside the top of the Deep Sounding. The Libyco-Capsian layers are particularly prolific in lithic debris, shells, and animal bones; preliminary analysis of the lithics suggests a development from Typical to Upper Capsian within the layers excavated in 2009. Geoarchaeological survey along the littoral to the west and east of the Haua Fteah identified complex sequences spanning most of the last interglacial-glacial cycle. Geoarchaeological survey south of the Haua Fteah characterized the major landforms of the Gebel Akhdar mountain and of the pre-desert and desert-edge zones further south, with Late Stone Age (Upper Palaeolithic and Epipalaeolithic) material being found especially on the southern side of the Gebel Akhdar, and Middle Stone Age (Middle Palaeolithic) material in the pre-desert and desert regions. The first suite of 14C dates (from charcoal samples taken in 2007) indicates the use of the Haua Fteah by Oranian huntergatherers during the Last Glacial Maximum and in the succeeding millennia, but not in the Younger Dryas cold/dry phase (~11,000-10,000 cal. BC), with Libyco-Capsian occupation resuming soon after the beginning of the Holocene ~9000 cal. BC, suggesting that the cave, and perhaps the Gebel Akhdar in general, have a complex history as refugia for human settlement during the Pleistocene.
Libyan Studies, 2010
The paper reports on the fourth (2010) season of fieldwork of the Cyrenaican Prehistory Project, and on further results of analyses of artefacts and organic materials collected in the 2009 season. Ground-based LiDar has provided both an accurate 3D scan of the Haua Fteah cave and information on the cave's morphometry or origins. The excavations in the cave focussed on Middle Palaeolithic or Middle Stone Age 'Pre-Aurignacian' layers below the base of the Middle Trench beside the McBurney Deep Sounding (Trench D) and on Final Palaeolithic 'Oranian' layers beside the upper part of the Middle Trench (Trench M). Although McBurney referred to the upper part of the Deep Sounding as more or less sterile, the 2010 excavations found evidence for small-scale but regular human presence in the form of stone artefacts and debitage, though given the sedimentary context the latter are unlikely to represent in situ knapping. The excavations of Trench M extended from the basal Capsian layers investigated in 2009 through Oranian layers to the transition with the Dabban Upper Palaeolithic. Some 17,000 lithic pieces have been studied from the Capsian and Oranian layers excavated in Trench M, in an area measuring less than 2 m by 1 m by 1.1 m deep, along with numerous animal bones, molluscs, and macrobotanical remains, as well as occasional shell beads. Preliminary studies of the lithics, bones, molluscs, and plant remains are revealing the changing character of late Pleistocene (Oranian) and early Holocene (Capsian) occupation in the Haua Fteah. Alongside the work in the Haua Fteah, the project continued its assessment of the Quaternary and archaeological sequences of the Cyrenaican coastland and completed a transect survey of surface lithic materials and their landform contexts from the pre-desert across the Gebel Akhdar to the coast, with a new focus on the al-Marj basin. Significant differences are emerging in patterns of Middle Palaeolithic and later hominin occupation and palaeodemography. The Cyrenaican Prehistory Project 2010: the fourth season of investigations of the Haua Fteah cave and its landscape, and further results from the
Annual of the Department of Antiquities of Jordan, 2023
Our project, “Climate, environment, and early farming societies: Late Neolithic settlement patterns on the Karak Plateau, Jordan”, aims to study the resilience to climate change of early farming communities in Jordan. It will achieve this by studying Late Neolithic settlement patterns and chronology through ground survey in combination with experimentation in the use of remote sensing and predictive modelling to aid in the discovery of these sites. Late Neolithic sites are under‑represented in the record not just because of a research bias (for example not collecting or studying chipped stone during surveys), but also because of other factors, including: a lack of training of survey crews in prehistory; the poor preservation of Neolithic pottery; the scarcity of diagnostic tools; the sites often being small; and site location being especially prone to have been covered by colluvium or later occupation. While deflated sites on hilltops and in steppe and desert areas may be found during intensive survey, in wetter areas many parts of the Neolithic landscape will have been destroyed The Karak ‘Neolithic’ Survey: PILOT SEASON, OCTOBER 2021 ADAJ 61 – 166 – by erosion (wadi downcutting) or covered by colluvium (Banning 2015). An approach that uses an iterative Bayesian allocation approach to target areas with a higher probability of containing preserved prehistoric remains has been successful in northern Jordan (Hitchings et al. 2016). We aim to use the same approach, although the pilot season presented here was used mainly to gather more data to assign such probabilities within the study region.
2015
Extensive prehistoric stone structures in Jordan are known as the “Works of the Old Men”.We date by OSL a category of the “Works” known as “wheels”.OSL dates the wheels from eastern Jordan to the Late Neolithic, and Early Bronze Age.Spatial statistics on the wheels reveals that they are organized in clusters.In this paper we generate chronological constraints through optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dating on extensive prehistoric stone structures that stretch out in the Arabian Desert and appear as geometric lines, known as the “Works of the Old Men”. Two major types of the “Works” that are common throughout the Arabian Desert are the “wheels” and the more intensively investigated “desert kites”. Here, OSL dating was applied to “wheels” in the Wadi Wisad area, in the eastern badia of Jordan. OSL dating generated ages that fall into the Late Neolithic to Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age periods. This chronological spectrum is consistent with the well-documented prehistoric activities at the archaeological site of Wisad Pools, also located in the Wadi Wisad area. Spatial analyses of the “Works” in Wadi Wisad and in the Azraq Oasis revealed that: 1) the wheels are organized in clusters, 2) the spatial distribution of the wheels is predetermined by the kites, 3) the kites were most probably created earlier than the wheels in the study areas and 4) a cluster of wheels nearby the Azraq Oasis tentatively demonstrates ranking and, perhaps, tendency for alignment, although this is not the case for the other wheel-clusters studied. Despite the progress toward understanding the chronological and spatial aspects of the wheels, a great deal of research remains to resolve the actual nature of these enigmatic stone structures.
AP2017: 12th International Conference of Archaeological Prospection
2017
Over the past decade, geophysical surveys coupled with small excavations, coring, historical aerial imagery, LiDAR, and most recently drone flights, have led to an increased understanding of Chief Looking’s Village (CLV), a fortified ancestral site of the Mandan tribe located on a terrace above the Missouri River. Dating to the mid-sixteenth century, the site is significant because preservation is good and it was occupied during a period of transition. CLV contains long rectangular houses (about 8 x18 m) characteristic of earlier eras as well as rounded square to circular four-post houses (about 14-18 m in diameter), referred to as earthlodges, which ultimately came to dominate the region. All were built of wooden frames, with the former having gabled roofs (possibly hide-covered) while the latter were hemispherical and earth-covered. Both forms possessed long linear entryways which, in earlier times, always faced southwest. The transition from rectangular to four-post lodges probab...
Different times? Archaeological and environmental data from intra-site and off-site sequences
18e Congrès International de l'UISPP, 2020
The present volume brings together some of the papers presented in a session organized in the 18th World Congress of the UISPP, under the title 'Different Times? Archaeological and Environmental Data from Intra-Site and Off-Site Sequences'. A common characteristic of these papers, besides their theme broadly speaking, is their connexion with the activities of the Working Group 'Environmental and Social changes in the Past' (Changements environnementaux et sociétés dans le passé), animated in the frame of the Cluster of Excellence 'Dynamite' (Territorial and Spatial Dynamics) of the University Paris 1-Panthéon-Sorbonne. This Cluster of Excellence, funded by the French State (ANR-11-LABX-0046, Programme d'Investissements d'Avenir), was created in 2012 as part of a public policy aiming at favouring interaction between researchers and disciplines that do not usually work together-or not enough. 'DynamiTe' (http:// labex-dynamite.com/fr/) was conceived as a consortium of laboratories representing different disciplines-geography mainly, but also anthropology, history, sociology, archaeology-susceptible to investigate issues around the key-concept of Territory, in the present, past and future. The Group 'Environmental and Social changes in the Past' focuses on evidenced landscape changes that affected human societies and the perception of these changes by the same societies. Its members are mostly archaeologists and physical geographers, many of them being further specialized in analytical techniques deriving from natural sciences (zoology, paleobotany, palynology, geology, sedimentology, malacology, anthracology). This small community-ca. 65 active members at the time of the Congress-handles and/or produces every day substantial quantities of data in relation with past events in the four corners of the earth (see also Giligny and Tsirtsoni 2015). And like most of their colleagues around the world, they give particular attention to the recording of time scales and interpretation of time records. Different times? Archaeological and environmental data from intra-site and off-site sequences the environmental change took place before or roughly simultaneously with the societal event itself. Of course this is still not a proof of causality, but it is a minimum prerequisite, the first step of the demonstration (
The second (2008) season of fieldwork of the Cyrenaican Prehistory Project has significantly advanced understanding of the Haua Fteah stratigraphy and of the archaeology and geomorphology of the landscape in which the cave is located. The excavations of the McBurney backfill have reached a total depth of 7.5 m below the present ground surface, the depth at which two human mandibles were found in the 1950s excavations. Reconnaissance at the Hagfet ed-Dabba established that the sediments associated with the Upper Palaeolithic 'Dabban' industry were more or less entirely removed by the McBurney excavation. Exploratory excavations in the Hagfet al-Gama, a coastal cave west of the Haua Fteah, found evidence of Mesolithic, Neolithic, and Hellenistic occupation. The initial results from the study of botanical remains, both macroscopic and microscopic, obtained in the 2007 season at the Haua Fteah confirm the potential of the site to yield a rich suite of materials to inform on climatic and environmental change, and on human activities in the cave.
Acta Archaeologica Lodziensia, 2022
The article presents the preliminary results of research conducted by the expedition of the Institute of Archeology of the Jagiellonian University and the Faculty of Geo-Data Science, Geodesy, and Environmental Engineering of the AGH University of Science and Technology in the southwestern Jordan at Dajaniya (Ma'an Husseiniyeh) and Tuwaneh (Tafila Hessa) sites in 2018-2019. The main aim of the research was to create plans for both sites and document the state of preservation of architectural remains using photogrammetry (both pole-and kite-based) as well as terrestrial laser scanning. Additionally, robber pits were recorded at both sites. A surface prospection was also conducted, collecting ceramic and metal artifacts, which, in the case of Tuwaneh, covered the central part of the site (the area around the so-called caravanserai) and part of the robber trenches and their waste piles. In 2019, three trial trenches were also excavated in the vicinity of the ancient baths at Tuwaneh.
Nazugum, a new 4000 year old rockshelter site in the Ili Alatau, Tien Shan
Archaeological Research in Asia
The PALAEOSILKROAD project has been conducting field surveys in Kazakhstan to explore the regional Palaeolithic record by targeting primarily caves and rockshelters. However, the survey also discovered numerous sites that were occupied during the Holocene. In this paper, we present our preliminary findings from the Nazugum rockshelter, a new archaeological site located in southeastern Kazakhstan (Almaty region). The stratigraphic sequence demonstrates the transition from fluvial channel deposits without artifacts to aeolian loess deposits with lithics, charcoal remnants, and fragments of animal bones. The lithics recovered from the sediment wall are dominated by bladelet technology, characteristic for Holocene assemblages. Radiocarbon date from adjacent charcoal samples yielded a calibrated age (2-sigma) of 2470-2288 cal BC attributing the human occupation to the transitional period of late Eneolithic and early Bronze Age. Our study provides new data for the use of rockshelters in Kazakhstan during the late Holocene and lays the groundwork for future salvage work in Nazugum rockshelter due to the active erosion of the archaeological record.