Palaeolithic Landscapes of the Central Azraq Basin: Palaeoenvironmental Change and Settlement Dynamics in the Eastern Desert of Jordan

Summary

This is an abstract from the "The Far-Reaching Influence of Steven L. Kuhn" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Open-air archaeological records provide an important contribution to our understanding of the range of environments exploited by hominins and how changes in technology and mobility might relate to local and regional environmental fluctuations. The challenge, however, is that the distribution of buried and surface archaeological remains in open-air contexts is greatly affected by geomorphic processes that acted on the landscape throughout the Quaternary. The resulting data sequences are often fragmentary and elucidating long-term human-environmental dynamics requires a multi-scalar approach and a well-developed understanding of landscape evolution. As an example, in this paper I discuss the Palaeolithic archaeological record of the central Azraq Basin at the eastern margin of the Levant, where Lower, Middle, Upper, and Epipaleolithic occupations are abundant. The region also experienced at least three local wetting-drying cycles over the past 350,000 years, ranging from expansive wetland landscapes to desert refugia characterized by isolated spring pools. Such fluctuations in the extent and distribution of freshwater resources played an important role in shaping the archaeological record, and I argue that in this context it is more beneficial to speak of an open-air archaeological landscape rather than sites in the traditional sense.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 90th Annual Meeting, Denver, CO (2025)   •
• The Far-Reaching Influence of Steven L. Kuhn

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 51297