Wasse, Alexander;
Rollefson, Gary;
Rowan, Yorke;
Heidkamp, Blair;
Martin, Louise;
Rottger-Morgan, Tom;
Saritas, Ozlem;
(2024)
Not a place for respectable people, but the ends of the earth converge there: insights from Wisad Pools into the nature and context of Jordan's Black Desert Neolithic.
Levant
, 56
(2)
pp. 153-184.
10.1080/00758914.2024.2350316.
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Abstract
New data, recovered by the Eastern Badia Archaeological Project, from substantial structures at Wisad Pools have provided insights into the nature and context of eastern Jordan’s Black Desert Neolithic cultural complex, dating to between c. 7000 and 5000 cal. BC. Hunter-herder-trapper communities, with economies based partially on ante-mortem exploitation of domestic sheep, were adept at maintaining a balance between local and non-local adaptations in shaping a networked culture that was deeply rooted in its local environment. Evidence for trans-regional connections with the Levant and Mesopotamia raises the possibility that longer-term habitation sites, like Wisad Pools, were instrumental in linking the western and eastern arms of the Fertile Crescent via direct routes across the steppe. At least one structure excavated by the Project displays evidence for sophisticated architectural planning, demonstrating awareness of basic geometric principles. New radiometric assays suggest that adaptive processes were profoundly influenced by episodes of climatic and environmental change, including the longer 8.2 ka event. Emerging data from north-west Saudi Arabia require Wisad Pools to be examined in the context of Arabian Neolithization, considering the possibility that the Black Desert Neolithic was a point of departure for some aspects of that process.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Not a place for respectable people, but the ends of the earth converge there: insights from Wisad Pools into the nature and context of Jordan's Black Desert Neolithic |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1080/00758914.2024.2350316 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1080/00758914.2024.2350316 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Copyright © 2024 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way. |
| Keywords: | Arabia; Architecture; Climate Change; Herding; Hunting; Levant; Mesopotamia; Sheep; Steppe; Neolithic |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of S&HS UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of S&HS > Institute of Archaeology UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of S&HS > Institute of Archaeology > Institute of Archaeology Gordon Square |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10197171 |
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