The Late Neolithic Expansion in the Black Desert, Jordan

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Water in the Desert: Human Resilience in the Azraq Basin and Eastern Desert of Jordan" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Spanning the early–mid-Holocene and the global climate event at 8200 BP (“8.2 event”), the Late Neolithic (ca. 7000–5000 BCE) is a crucial time for understanding cultural trajectories in southwest Asia. In hyperarid deserts such as that in the Black Desert of eastern Jordan, questions remain about the environmental background and its impact on the behavior of communities. Research over the past decade by the Eastern Badia Archaeological Project has recorded substantial Late Neolithic occupation sites in the eastern desert of Jordan. Although evidence from the Arabian Peninsula and Sahara demonstrated permanent lakes and associated vegetation at this time, until now little evidence was available to place eastern Jordan into this regional perspective. This paper will present evidence from the Black Desert sites of Wisad Pools and Wadi al-Qattafi that suggests that this was a steppic zone crossed by people reliant on caprine herding and intensified hunting. These Neolithic people had contacts outside what we now view as this marginal zone and had increased social and economic interaction beyond the steppic region.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)   •
• Water in the Desert: Human Resilience in the Azraq Basin and Eastern Desert of Jordan

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 40079.0