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Project Summary:
Excavations during the summers of 2002 through 2005 at the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A period (PPNA) site of Dhra', Jordan will recover data necessary to evaluate the applicability of two explanations for the transition from foraging to farming in the Near East. These two models can be characterized as alternatively emphasizing the rapid nature of this transition (including the domestication of subsistence resources over a short period of time, sudden population aggregation, and a pronounced cultural break with preceding cultural systems), or the gradual nature of this transition (including periods of experimentation with the gradual development of domesticated subsistence resources, slow population growth, and cultural continuity with preceding periods). As the only known large sedentary village located outside of the Mediterranean Woodlands region, occupied in both the early and late phases of the PPNA, the site of Dhra' is the only identified site with data to evaluate these competing models of the transformation from small-scale foraging communities to relatively large sedentary agricultural communities in the Near East.

With its location outside of the Mediterranean Woodland zone, and an occupation spanning the PPNA, archaeological research at Dhra' provides an unique opportunity to refine the models for foraging to farming transition in the Near East, improve the understanding of the social process by which food production emerged, and explore the degree to which this transition occurred in a single vegetative region and / or if it were centered within larger villages. Preliminary excavations at Dhra' and the analysis of nine radiocarbon dates demonstrate that it was a relatively large village occupied in early stage of the PPNA (c.11,500 -11,200 BP), that it is approximately the same size as Netiv Hagdud and Gilgal I located in the Mediterranean Woodland zone to the North, and it is characterized by outstanding preservation of multiple types of architecture, ground and chipped stone materials, and faunal and macro-botanical remains.

The proposed interdisciplinary research involves a three-year program of investigation of the PPNA social and economic adaptations in the southern Jordan Valley. The project schedule involves three, six-week long field seasons centering on the excavations of the large architectural village settlement of Dhra'. The research design stresses the recovery of critical archaeological, chronometric, paleobotanic, faunal, and geologic data that will be used to reconstruct: (a) the nature of socio-economic frameworks of life within early agricultural Neolithic villages; (b) the period of time within which the transition occurred; and, (c) the extent to which this transition can be characterized as being local or regional in scale. The proposed research will contribute to an archaeological and anthropological understanding of the Near East in four major ways: (a) an improved understanding of the nature of local adaptations in the transition from forager to farming along the Mediterranean-desert ecotone; (b) a comparative database with which to explore the PPNA origins of agriculture on local and regional scales; (c) tighter chronological control of the trajectory within which this cultural transition occurred; and (d) detailed evaluation and refinement of competing anthropological models of the transformation from small-scale foraging communities to relatively large sedentary agricultural communities in the Near East.

Suggested Background Readings:
Bar-Yosef, O. 1991 The Early Neolithic of the Levant: recent advances, The Review of Archaeology 12 (2): 1 - 18.
Goodale, N. B., I. Kuijt, & B. Finlayson 2002 The Chipped Stone Assemblage of Dhra', Jordan: Preliminary Results on Technology, Typology, and Intra-Assemblage Variability. Paléorient 28(1): 115-130.
Kuijt, I. 2000 People and Space in Early Agricultural Villages: Exploring Daily Lives, Community Size and Architecture in the Late Pre-Pottery Neolithic. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology. 19:75-102.
Kuijt, I. 2001 Lithic Inter-assemblage Variability and Cultural-Historical Sequences: A Consideration of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A Period Occupation of Dhra', Jordan. Paléorient, 27(1): 107-126.
Kuijt, I and B. Finlayson 2001 The 2001 Excavation Season at the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A Period Settlement of Dhra', Jordan: Preliminary results. Neo-Lithics: Southwest Asian Lithic Research. 2(1): 12-15.
Kuijt, I. & H. Mahasneh 1998 Dhra': An Early Neolithic site in the Jordan Valley. Journal of Field Archaeology 25: 153-161.

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