Early and mid-Holocene environments and settlements in eastern Jordan, 2019

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Project summary

This research is part of the multi-national Eastern Badia Archaeological Project. This part of the project is investigating the early and mid-Holocene environments of the Wadi al-Qattafi and the Wisad Pools, two key sites of early Holocene occupation in the eastern Jordanian desert.


Project details

Location: Jordan

Year(s): 2019

Project director(s): Matthew Jones (University of Nottingham)

Project team:

  • Gary Rollefson,
  • Yorke Rowan,
  • Alexander Wasse,
  • Morag Kersel,
  • Wesam Esaid

Lead institutions and funding:

  • CBRL

Project description

This research is part of the multi-national Eastern Badia Archaeological Project. This part of the project is investigating the early and mid-Holocene environments of the Wadi al-Qattafi and the Wisad Pools, two key sites of early Holocene occupation in the eastern Jordanian desert.

Geomorphological survey and analysis of the sediment archive at both these locations allows us to build a picture of how the hydrological setting of these sites has changed in time, and especially to look at how different this might have been 8,000 years ago compared to present. Our initial work suggests that the early Holocene landscape was characterised by more vegetation than is seen today, with basins that could hold more water than they can at present. We continue to develop the evidence to test this hypothesis.


Related projects

Early and mid-Holocene environments and settlements in eastern Jordan, 2016. More information here.


Project bibliography

Jones, Matthew. 2020. Early and mid-Holocene environments and settlements in eastern Jordan . Bulletin of the Council for British Research in the Levant 2018-2019, p 20.