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We use faunal evidence from Khirbat al-Mudayna al-ʿAliya, an agropastoral settlement located in west-central Jordan, to examine early Iron Age subsistence regimes. Analysis of faunal evidence reveals a low-intensity, nonspecialized animal economy dependent on both domesticated and wild species, including freshwater crabs. The subsistence economy of the settlement, we argue, was structured so as to take maximum advantage of its location overlooking the Wadi al-Nukhayla, a perennial water source supporting a relatively verdant floral and faunal array. This diverse and flexible organization made subsistence in this resource-scarce environment more sustainable. When this profile is compared with other early Iron Age southern Levantine communities, the diversity of ways that animal economies were organized during this period is apparent, signaling the need to investigate the local strategies that communities used to adapt to their immediate environmental circumstances, not only ecologically but also socially.

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The Mesha Inscription (ca. 850 B.C.) is the longest and most informative document from Iron Age Jordan. A close reading of this text shows that it is thematically and syntactically structured in terms of a series of territorially-based social units related to one another in a segmentary manner. This segmentary structure highlights the state-forming strategies of political incorporation pursued by Mesha, the inscription's putative author. It also highlights the limits of the recent characterization of biblical Moab as "tribal," with its assumption that kinship, rather than territory, was the principle organizing metaphor of the state.

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