A multi-proxy site formation analysis of a late Middle Pleistocene occupation in the Azraq wetlands of northeastern Jordan

Summary

The Azraq Marshes Archaeological and Paleoecological Project (AMAPP) aims to understand and evaluate the importance of the Azraq wetlands for Pleistocene hominin populations. Ongoing research since 2009 indicates that the northern wetland, the Druze Marsh, acted as a desert refugium for hominins throughout the Middle and Late Pleistocene. Excavations in the southern marsh—known as the Shishan Marsh—began in 2013 and uncovered a rich assemblage of bifaces, small tools, and flakes, along with fragmentary faunal remains. The Shishan Marsh 1 (SM1) occupation, which dates to approximately 250 ka, is embedded in a complex sedimentary sequence indicative of a transitional environment, from a lake to marshy ponds that formed at the edge of an alluvial fan. This paper summarizes the results of sedimentary and microbotanical analyses of the site’s stratigraphy, as well as site formation indicators from the lithic and faunal remains recovered during the 2013, 2014, and 2015 field seasons. We conclude with a discussion of the depositional history of the Shishan Marsh occupation, and implications for deciphering how the area was used by the late Middle Pleistocene inhabitants.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)   •
• Middle Pleistocene Subsistence in the Azraq Oasis, Jordan: Protein Residue and Other Proxies

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 15718