Paleoenvironmental Signatures of a Persistent Place at Kharaneh IV, 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.

Paleoclimatic and paleoenvironmental data are pertinent to understanding the processes that form persistent places. This paper presents new physical and chemical geoarchaeological data, including faunal C and O isotopes, sediment composition, and geological survey data, from Kharaneh IV, a large Early to Middle Epipaleolithic site in eastern Jordan, and aggregates existing information to define the site’s unique environmental qualities and form a narrative of climatic change on the Kharaneh landscape. In addition to confirming dry periods before and after the site’s occupation identified by previous research, we find that environmental conditions during the site’s thousand-year history were relatively stable, with the exception of a temporary period of enhanced precipitation during the site’s Middle Epipaleolithic occupation. While other water sources may have been available in the region, we find that the site’s reliability over a thousand-year period encouraged continued reoccupations of the site and contributed to the formation of a persistent place.

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): 41570.0