9 September 2020
Today, Jordan’s Black Desert is an area of volcanic rocks that lie above the limestones of the Transjordan plateau stretching from Jebel Druze, south-east of Damascus, across eastern Jordan and into northern Saudi Arabia. Underexplored archaeologically, the Eastern Badia Archaeological Project (EBAP) aims to record and study the architecture, artefacts, and petroglyphs of this area, to integrate the findings with biological and palaeoclimatic data in order to understand the human occupation and use of the region.
After c. 6,500 BCE, the population in the Project study area appears to have mushroomed to unprecedented population density, with several sites that include Wisad Pools and Wadi al-Qattafi reaching enormous size, including hundreds of quasi-contemporaneously inhabited buildings.
In this talk, the EBAP team will discuss their research that suggests that the climate and vegetation of Jordan’s Black Desert was once very different to what is found there today.
This event is held in partnership with the Palestine Exploration Fund.
