Download or read book Human Ecology in the Wadi al Hasa written by J. Brett Hill and published by University of Arizona Press. This book was released on 2022-04-05 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Amid mounting concern over modern environmental degradation, archaeologists around the world are demonstrating the long history of such processes and the way they have shaped current landscapes. A growing body of evidence shows how humans have modified their environment for millennia, and contemporary problems cannot be understood without an adequate sense of this ecological past and the role of humans in it. The Wadi al-Hasa, a large canyon draining the Transjordan Plateau into the Dead Sea, has been the location of repeated cycles of settlement and land use for thousands of years. This book focuses on changing land-use patterns and their relationship to socio-political organization. Using a combination of archaeological and environmental data, Brett Hill examines the human ecology of agriculture and pastoralism from the beginnings of domestication through the rise and collapse of complex societies. Models of land use often consider political complexity as an important factor affecting mismanagement. Together with GIS erosion modeling and settlement pattern analysis, Hill evaluates the archaeological, historical, and environmental record spanning the Holocene to show how land use was affected by the rise of centralized authority. Yet populations in the Hasa maintained the ability to resist authority and return to a nomadic life when it became advantageous. This process emphasizes the power of local groups to pursue alternative strategies when their interests diverged from those of elites, creating a dynamic that reshapes the landscape each generation. Hill’s analysis contributes significantly to our understanding of the history of human ecology in the southern Levant, wherein current debates are complicated by research at different scales and by a lack of consensus on the importance of localized phenomena. It not only complements existing research but also seeks to refine models of processes in human ecology to demonstrate the effect of political organization on land mismanagement.

Download or read book Quaternary of the Levant written by Yehouda Enzel and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2017-04-27 with total page 789 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Quaternary of the Levant presents up-to-date research achievements from a region that displays unique interactions between the climate, the environment and human evolution. Focusing on southeast Turkey, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Israel, it brings together over eighty contributions from leading researchers to review 2.5 million years of environmental change and human cultural evolution. Information from prehistoric sites and palaeoanthropological studies contributing to our understanding of 'out of Africa' migrations, Neanderthals, cultures of modern humans, and the origins of agriculture are assessed within the context of glacial-interglacial cycles, marine isotope cycles, plate tectonics, geochronology, geomorphology, palaeoecology and genetics. Complemented by overview summaries that draw together the findings of each chapter, the resulting coverage is wide-ranging and cohesive. The cross-disciplinary nature of the volume makes it an invaluable resource for academics and advanced students of Quaternary science and human prehistory, as well as being an important reference for archaeologists working in the region.

Download or read book The Archaeology of Human Environment Interactions written by Daniel Contreras and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2016-08-25 with total page 283 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The impacts of climate change on human societies, and the roles those societies themselves play in altering their environments, appear in headlines more and more as concern over modern global climate change intensifies. Increasingly, archaeologists and paleoenvironmental scientists are looking to evidence from the human past to shed light on the processes which link environmental and cultural change. Establishing clear contemporaneity and correlation, and then moving beyond correlation to causation, remains as much a theoretical task as a methodological one. This book addresses this challenge by exploring new approaches to human-environment dynamics and confronting the key task of constructing arguments that can link the two in concrete and detailed ways. The contributors include researchers working in a wide variety of regions and time periods, including Mesoamerica, Mongolia, East Africa, the Amazon Basin, and the Island Pacific, among others. Using methodological vignettes from their own research, the contributors explore diverse approaches to human-environment dynamics, illustrating the manifold nature of the subject and suggesting a wide variety of strategies for approaching it. This book will be of interest to researchers and scholars in Archaeology, Paleoenvironmental Science, Ecology, and Geology.

Download or read book The Archaeology of Environmental Change written by Christopher T. Fisher and published by University of Arizona Press. This book was released on 2022-05-24 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Water management, soil conservation, sustainable animal husbandry . . . because such socio-environmental challenges have been faced throughout history, lessons from the past can often inform modern policy. In this book, case studies from a wide range of times and places reveal how archaeology can contribute to a better understanding of humans' relation to the environment. The Archaeology of Environmental Change shows that the challenges facing humanity today, in terms of causing and reacting to environmental change, can be better approached through an attempt to understand how societies in the past dealt with similar circumstances. The contributors draw on archaeological research in multiple regions—North America, Mesoamerica, Europe, the Near East, and Africa—from time periods spanning the Holocene, and from environments ranging from tropical forest to desert. Through such examples as environmental degradation in Transjordan, wildlife management in East Africa, and soil conservation among the ancient Maya, they demonstrate the negative effects humans have had on their environments and how societies in the past dealt with these same problems. All call into question and ultimately refute popular notions of a simple cause-and-effect relationship between people and their environment, and reject the notion of people as either hapless victims of unstoppable forces or inevitable destroyers of natural harmony. These contributions show that by examining long-term trajectories of socio-natural relationships we can better define concepts such as sustainability, land degradation, and conservation—and that gaining a more accurate and complete understanding of these connections is essential for evaluating current theories and models of environmental degradation and conservation. Their insights demonstrate that to understand the present environment and to manage landscapes for the future, we must consider the historical record of the total sweep of anthropogenic environmental change.

Download or read book Crossing Jordan written by Thomas Evan Levy and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-06-16 with total page 739 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jordan is a key area of migration within the Levantine corridor that links the continents of Africa and Asia. 'Crossing Jordan' examines the peoples and cultures that have travelled across Jordan from antiquity to the present. The book offers a critical analysis of recent discoveries and archaeological models in Jordan and highlights the significant contribution of North American archaeologists to the field. Leading archaeologists explore the theory and methodology of archaeology in Jordan in essays which range across prehistory, the Bronze Age, the Iron Age, the Hellenistic and Roman periods, Nabatean civilization, the Byzantine period, and Islamic civilization. The volume provides an up-to-date guide to the archaeological heritage of Jordan, being an important resource for scholars and students of Jordan's history, as well as citizens, non-governmental organizations and tourists.

Download or read book Yahweh Origin of a Desert God written by Robert D. Miller II and published by Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. This book was released on 2021-03-08 with total page 254 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Recognizing the absence of a God named Yahweh outside of ancient Israel, this study addresses the related questions of Yahweh's origins and the biblical claim that there were Yahweh-worshipers other than the Israelite people. Beginning with the Hebrew Bible, with an exhaustive survey of ancient Near Eastern literature and inscriptions discovered by archaeology, and using anthropology to reconstruct religious practices and beliefs of ancient Edom and Midian, this study proposes an answer. Yahweh-worshiping Midianites of the Early Iron Age brought their deity along with metallurgy into ancient Palestine and the Israelite people.

Download or read book The Social Construction of Communities written by Mark D. Varien and published by Rowman Altamira. This book was released on 2008-08-15 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Social Construction of Communities draws on archaeological research in the Southwest to examine how communities are created through social interaction. The archaeological record of the Southwest is important for its precise dating, exceptional preservation, large number of sites, and length of occupation—making it most intensively researched archaeological regions in the world. Taking advantage of that rich archaeological record, the contributors to this volume present case studies of the Mesa Verde, Rio Grande, Kayenta, Mogollon, and Hohokam regions. The result is an enhanced understanding of the ancient Southwest, a new appreciation for the ways in which humans construct communities and transform society, and an expanded theoretical discussion of the foundational concepts of modern social theory.

Download or read book Origin and Spread of Domestication and Farming written by Premendra Priyadarshi and published by Notion Press. This book was released on 2021-05-19 with total page 492 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: They migrated not only with the language they spoke and their DNAs but also with their cows, bulls and buffaloes. With them went their dogs, chicken and goats. They carried with them the seeds of barley and rice and wheat. And the mice and shrews followed them. They spread the pottery and the figurines, the art and culture of India to Iran, Iraq, Syria, Turkey, Jordan and Israel and further west. This is the story of out-of-India migration of the farmers between 8000 BCE to 1500 BCE from Mehrgarh and the later Harappa Civilization located in the Indus-Sarasvati Valley of Northwest India, from Vindhya region, and the Ganga Valley in Central India and from the Brahmaputra Valley of Assam. Based on archaeological records of not only India, but also China, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Turkey and Levant, and the genetic studies of man, animals and plants, both modern and ancient. A book for everyone interested in authentic evidence-based prehistory of India and her contributions to Asia, Europe and Africa during the Neolithic, Copper Age and Bronze Age. Appropriate citations and detailed bibliography, as well as a subject index, have been provided. The book lays to rest the speculative type of prehistory of India and the Aryan Invasion hypothesis.

Download or read book From Huhugam to Hohokam written by J. Brett Hill, Hendrix College and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2018-12-19 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From Huhugam to Hohokam: Heritage and Archaeology in the American Southwest is an historical comparison of archaeologists’ views of the ancient Hohokam with Native O’odham concepts about themselves and their relationships with their neighbors and ancestors.

Download or read book Millennial Landscape Change in Jordan written by Carlos E. Cordova and published by University of Arizona Press. This book was released on 2007-05-10 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Stands of relict vegetation, soil horizons, and sedimentary deposits along with archaeological evidence suggest that during certain time spans within the past twenty millennia, Jordan was endowed with moister and more vegetated landscapes than the ones we see today. In this detailed volume, Carlos E. Cordova synthesizes diverse information on multiple topics to provide a comprehensive view of the changes in the Jordanian landscape and the many ways it has been affected by human habitation and the forces of nature. Cordova focuses on geoarchaeological and cultural ecological aspects of research, presenting data from physical, chemical, and biological sources. He examines the changing influence of climate, vegetation, and hunting opportunities on cultural exploitation tactics, as well as the effects of the growing population and agriculture on the environment. Cordova argues that an interdisciplinary approach to studying the area is crucial to achieving a true understanding of JordanÕs changing landscape. Chapter topics include approaches to the study of ancient Jordanian landscapes in the Near Eastern context; the physical scene; endowed landscapes of the woodlands; the encroaching drylands; the current and future state of the paleoecological and geoarchaeological record; patterns of millennial landscape change; and the process of interpreting millennial landscape change. The text is abundantly illustrated with photos, line illustrations, tables, and maps, providing a valuable assessment of archaeological developments over the prehistory and history of what today is the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. This volume will be especially welcomed by scholars interested in the archaeology, history, and geography of Jordan, the Levant, and the Near East and by field-school students working on archaeological projects in Jordan.

Download or read book Complex Communities written by Benjamin W. Porter and published by University of Arizona Press. This book was released on 2013-11-28 with total page 357 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Complex Communities explores how sedentary settlements developed and flourished in the Middle East during the Early Iron Age nearly four thousand years ago. Using archaeological evidence, Benjamin Porter reconstructs how residents maintained their communities despite environmental uncertainties. Living in a semi-arid area in the present-day country of Jordan, villagers faced a harsh and unpredictable ecosystem. Communities fostered resilience by creating flexible production routines and leadership strategies. Settlements developed what archaeologists call “communal complexity,” a condition through which small-scale societies shift between egalitarian and hierarchical arrangements. Complex Communities provides detailed, scientifically grounded reconstructions of how this communal complexity functioned in the region. These settlements emerged during a period of recovery following the political and economic collapse of Bronze Age Mediterranean societies. Scholars have characterized west-central Jordan’s political organization during this time as an incipient Moabite state. Complex Communities argues instead that the settlements were a collection of independent, self-organizing entities. Each community constructed substantial villages with fortifications, practiced both agriculture and pastoralism, and built and stocked storage facilities. From these efforts to produce and store resources, especially food, wealth was generated and wealthier households gained power over their neighbors. However, power was limited by the fact that residents could—and did—leave communities and establish new ones. Complex Communities reveals that these settlements moved through adaptive cycles as they adjusted to a changing socionatural system. These sustainability-seeking communities have lessons to offer not only the archaeologists studying similar struggles in other locales, but also to contemporary communities facing negative climate change. Readers interested in resilience studies, Near Eastern archaeology, historical ecology, and the archaeology of communities will welcome this volume.

Download or read book Men on the Rocks written by Michel Mouton and published by Logos Verlag Berlin GmbH. This book was released on 2013 with total page 364 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Petra in modern southern Jordan is universally known as one of the most frequented touristic sites in the Near East, inscribed on the UNESCO world heritage list. Modern visitors are attracted by the romantic aspect of the rock-cut tomb façades, heavily contrasting in their baroque stile with the desert like surrounding of the rocky and arid landscape. These monuments were the result of the long time presence of the Arab tribe of the Nabataeans who made Petra their capital when they became, at least partially, sedentarised during the Hellenistic period, i.e between the late 4th to late 1st centuries BCE. How exactly this process of sedentarisation happened, how the site of Petra changed from a temporary dwelling place of a small Bedouin tribe to one of the blinking capitals of the ancient Near East that attracted - as it is the case today - visitors from all over the world, was the subject of a three years research program, jointly sponsored by the French Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR) and the German Research Foundation (DFG). At the end of the program, an international conference, held in Berlin in December 2011, brought together several dozen of scholars from all over the world in order to pinpoint the state of research on the Formation of the Nabataean capital. The contributions of the present volume focus on questions related to the natural environment of the site, on the geology and geography as well as on architecture, small finds and social dynamics, probably the clue for a better understanding of the functioning of the Nabataean kingdom and its capital Petra.

Download or read book Handbook of Ancient Afro Eurasian Economies written by Sitta von Reden and published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. This book was released on 2023-10-24 with total page 700 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Handbook of Ancient Afro-Eurasian Economies offers in three volumes the first comprehensive discussion of economic development in the empires of the Afro-Eurasian world region to elucidate the conditions under which large quantities of goods and people moved across continents and between empires. Volume 3: Frontier-Zone Processes and Transimperial Exchange analyzes frontier zones as particular landscapes of encounter, economic development, and transimperial network formation. The chapters offer problematizing approaches to frontier zone processes as part of and in between empires, with the goal of better understanding how and why goods and resources moved across the Afro-Eurasian region. Key frontiers in mountains and steppes, along coasts, rivers, and deserts are investigated in depth, demonstrating how local landscapes, politics, and pathways explain network practices and participation in long-distance trade. The chapters seek to retrieve local knowledge ignored in popular Silk Road models and to show the potential of frontier-zone research for understanding the Afro-Eurasian region as a connected space.

Download or read book Dir s t F T r kh Wa th r Al Urdun written by and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page 898 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Water and Society from Ancient Times to the Present written by Federica Sulas and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-10-03 with total page 402 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As water availability, management and conservation become global challenges, there is now wide consensus that historical knowledge can provide crucial information to address present crises, offering unique opportunities to appreciate the solutions and mechanisms societies have developed over time to deal with water in all its forms, from rainfall to groundwater. This unique collection explores how ancient water systems relate to present ideas of resilience and sustainability and can inform future strategy. Through an investigation of historic water management systems, along with the responses to, and impact of, various water-driven catastrophes, contributors to this volume present tenable solutions for the long-term use of water resources in different parts of the world. The discussion is not limited to issues of the past, seeking instead to address the resonance and legacy of water histories in the present and future. Water and Society from Ancient Times to the Present speaks to an archaeological and non-archaeological scholarly audience and will be a useful primary reference text for researchers and graduate students from a variety of disciplinary backgrounds including archaeology, anthropology, history, ecology, geography, geology, architecture and development studies.

Download or read book Mediterranean Archaeological Landscapes written by Effie F. Athanassopoulos and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2011-01-01 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Mediterranean landscape record is recognized for its length and richness and the opportunity it offers to study the interaction between humans and their landscape. This volume explores a variety of current archaeological issues in the context of specific landscapes from southern Spain through Greece and Cyprus to Jordan and from antiquity to recent times. Over the last 25 years, researchers have initiated a dramatic expansion in theoretical approaches—both anthropological and classical. Over the same time span, a huge volume of field survey projects has been carried out in the Mediterranean arena. The contributors to Mediterranean Archaeological Landscapes take stock of what has been learned, identify lacunae, and consider new approaches to our understanding of the rich surface landscape record of the Mediterranean. Their goal is to explore theoretically diverse interpretative themes and the methods that make those approachable.

Download or read book The Southern Transjordan Edomite Plateau and the Dead Sea Rift Valley written by Burton MacDonald and published by Oxbow Books. This book was released on 2015-03-12 with total page 153 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Burton MacDonald presents an in-depth study of the archaeology and history of human presence over the past five-six thousand years in the southern segment of the Transjordan/Edomite Plateau and the Dead Sea Rift Valley to the west. The evidence from archaeology for the area spans the entire period though the time for which literary evidence is available is only the past 4000 years, from the Middle Bronze Age (2000-1550 BC). Once literary evidence is available, however, it complements the archaeological record and, as can be amply demonstrated, the written records can be clarified only through the archaeological data. These two sources are, thus, used to describe environments, resources, industries, settlement patterns, and the lifestyles of the inhabitants of this pivotal region. The result is a “story” of the people who lived in the area from the Bronze Age through the Islamic period. What is evident is that there were differences in certain archaeological periods in settlement patterns, as well as lifestyles, between those who lived on the southern segment of the Plateau and those who lived in the Dead Sea Rift Valley or in the lowlands immediately to the west. Moreover, it is obvious that when there were periods of trade and industry, for example, the spice trade and copper mining and processing, the population of the area was higher. Stable governance brought about growth in population and prosperity. But other factors also played their part in these ebbs and flows of population: climatic fluctuations affecting the availability of water and arable land; the development and adoption of new technologies in farming practices, raw material extraction and industrial methods, processes and transportation; and political change resulting in periods of relative stability and instability in government.