New article by Jagher, R., Al-Nahar, M., Abu Ghaneimeh, K., Hourani, F., Samawi, O., Le Tensorer, J.-M., Wojtczak, D., in Swiss-Liechtenstein Foundation for Archaeological Research Abroad SLSA, Annual report 2023.
The First Human Settlements on the Left Bank of the Jordan Valley project (2015–2023) is a Jordanian-Swiss joint venture between the University of Basel, the University of Jordan in Amman, and Yarmouk University in Irbid, supported by the Department of Antiquities of the Hashemite Kingdom. The fieldwork was funded by the Swiss-Liechtenstein Foundation for Archaeological Research Abroad (SLSA). Since the early 1980s, the Prehistory Working Group of the Integrative Prehistory and Archaeological Science (IPAS/IPNA) at the University of Basel has been engaged in archaeological research in the Middle East. The Jordan Valley project was initiated to complement long-term excavations at the oasis of El Kowm in central Syria (Aurenche et al. 2015, and literature therein) and a comprehensive survey in Oman (Jagher & Pümpin, 2010). Previously, despite its central geographical position in the Levant, the Jordan Valley had never been the subject of a full, systematic survey of the Palaeolithic period. There had been a number of local investigations, but these had covered only small areas and were usually focused on specific issues, and most of the information gathered had been published with place names easy to overlook or misunderstood in a bibliographic search (e.g., Henry 1966; Marks 1988a, 1988b; Perrot et al. 1990; Mercier 1992; Ewing, Mercier & Henry 1996; Monchot & Bar-Yosef 2001; Shea et al. 2015). During the present project’s five field seasons (2015, 2016, 2018, 2022, and 2023), a considerable wealth of new information about Palaeolithic settlements on the left bank of the Jordan Valley was acquired.
The results of the project can be summarised in the following statistics. A database with more than 25,000 entries (Table 1) was produced during 526 working days in the field. The actual survey took 412 days, with a team numbering an average of 5.2 persons per day. A surface of nearly 60 square kilometres was surveyed for the presence (or absence) of Stone Age finds. A further 110 working days were spent studying the finds. Observations were made at 1,249 locations with respect to archaeological evidence (or lack thereof), geographical setting, geological substratum, availability of raw material, abundance of finds, and chronological setting, and the results entered in the database. Sixty-two locations were documented for geological reasons only, and 19 entries related to general observations from reconnaissance. In total, 628 surveyed locations yielded no finds while 588 yielded stone tools. Those with tools were eventually consolidated into 502 archaeological sites of different ages and sizes. The field teams comprised seven to ten members per year. The outstanding outcome of the project would not have been achieved without the dedication and commitment of all those involved at every level.
Initial interpretations and preliminary conclusions from earlier years were overturned by later observations, and with each survey a wealth of new findings emerged, prompting a shift in the approach to evaluating the field data and leading to new interpretations. This report therefore summarises and replaces the four preliminary reports published after each field season (Aurenche et al. 2015, 2016, 2018, 2022) and attempts to provide a coherent synopsis of the observations made in the field, the preliminary studies of the finds, and the conclusions drawn from all five of the project’s field seasons.
More info: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/386506723_Jordan_Valley_Survey_-_final_report_2024