Human-Environment Dynamics at the Arid Margin of the Levant: Fluctuating Freshwater Resources between 400,000 and 40,000 Years Ago in the Greater Azraq Oasis Area, 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.

The Azraq Basin is a 12,000 km2 internal drainage system at the eastern margin of the Levant. The center of the basin, which we refer to as the Greater Azraq Oasis Area (GAOA), is characterized by a mudflat flanked by two historical wetlands. Desiccation of these wetlands in the early 1990s and subsequent construction activities have exposed middle and late Pleistocene wetland deposits containing abundant Lower, Middle, and Upper Paleolithic stone tools and faunal remains. Landscape-focused geoarchaeological research has since demonstrated that the past 350,000 years in the GAOA is characterized by at least three local wetting-drying cycles that would have dramatically shifted the quantity and distribution of freshwater resources, ranging from expansive wetland landscapes to desert refugia characterized by isolated spring pools—changes that would have significantly impacted the mobility decisions and settlement patterns of Paleolithic inhabitants. In this paper, we present results of our ongoing efforts to integrate the Pleistocene archaeological, paleoenvironmental, and paleoclimatic records of the GAOA to elucidate the relationship between fluctuating freshwater resources and hominin adaptation in the Basin between 400,000 and 40,000 BP.

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): 39846.0