Movement and Mobility of Late Neolithic Colonizers: Occupying the Black Desert of Jordan (20 min)

Presenters

Yorke Rowan, University of Chicago

Abstract

Early explorers visited and documented the region, but the harsh basalt strewn landscape of the Black Desert in eastern Jordan remained understudied by archaeologists until recently. Difficulties of access and severe conditions prevented systematic archaeological investigations by all but the most intrepid pioneers such as Alison Betts, Andrew Garrard, and Svend Helms during the last quarter of the 20th century. These pioneering efforts noted traces of Late Neolithic (ca. 7000–5000 cal B.C.E.) people, but little more was understood. Since 2010, the Eastern Badia Archaeological Project has investigated the Black Desert through a combination of excavation, remote sensing, and pedestrian and UAV survey, concentrating on two areas: Wadi al-Qattafi and Wisad Pools. This research led to the discovery that during the seventh millennium and into the sixth millennium B.C.E. hundreds of buildings were constructed and occupied recurrently for substantial amounts of time. Botanical evidence indicates a wetter, lusher environment than the current harsh desert setting. Further archaeological evidence resulted in a previously unrecognized rapid population growth, higher levels of occupational intensity, and increasing levels of social interaction. This paper summarizes the data for conditions that permitted wild animal hunting, caprine herding, and perhaps opportunistic agriculture during the Late Neolithic period, a time once thought to be a hiatus in the prehistory of the southern Levant.