Desert agricultural systems at EBA Jawa (Jordan): Integrating archaeological and paleoenvironmental records

Meister, Julia; Krause, Jan; Müller-Neuhof, Bernd; Portillo, Marta; Reimann, Tony; Schütt, Brigitta

doi:10.1016/j.quaint.2015.12.086

Cited by 28 publications

(31 citation statements)

References 87 publications

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“…Irrigation systems designed with similar intentions, in fact, are common in many other parts of the world. For example, ancient Near Eastern sites, such as Tepe Gaz Tavila (5400–4800 BC, Iran) [84], Wadi Faynan (Bronze Age to Roman period, Jordan) [85], Jawa (Early Bronze Age, Jordan) [86], and Petra (Nabataean/ Roman, Jordan) [87], all have similar stone-constructed irrigation systems. However, sediment trapping practices have never been reported at agro-pastoralist sites in the mountains of Inner Asia.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Farming strategies of 1st millennium CE agro-pastoralists on the southern foothills of the Tianshan Mountains: A geoarchaeological and macrobotanical investigation of the Mohuchahangoukou (MGK) site, Xinjiang, China

Storozum

Tian

et al. 2019

PLoS ONE

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Archaeological evidence emerging over the past decade clearly illustrates that agro-pastoralists living along the foothills of major mountain chains in Central Asia (the so-called “Inner Asian Mountain Corridor” or IAMC) facilitated the spread of domesticated grains through their direct involvement in farming. While the environmental conditions across the northwestern slopes of the IAMC provided adequate resources for incipient farming and herding as early as the mid-3 rd mill. BCE, the development of local agricultural strategies on the extremely arid and eroded foothills on the southeastern, leeward side of the mountains remain comparatively less studied. Our study tackles this problem by combining geoarchaeological analysis with conventional macrobotanical identification in the investigation of a 1 st -mill. CE agro-pastoralist farming site, Mohuchahangoukou (MGK), located on the arid foothills of the Tianshan range. Our results illustrate how ancient agro-pastoralists at MGK innovated irrigation systems both to combat water shortage and, importantly, to trap sediments carried by flood-water for crop cultivation. By synthesizing currently available data, we estimate that they managed to trap about 40 cm of fine-grained sediment within a span of 200 years or even less. These stone-built field systems helped water a diverse stand of crops and create deeper soils in an otherwise deflated landscape with thin desert soils. Since we detected high levels of salt concentration (>2 dSm -1 ) in the lower portions of all three test trenches we analyzed, we conclude that soil salinization might have affected the long-term sustainability of this form of irrigated field management. We also infer that, besides engineering efforts, the ancient agro-pastoralists at MGK had to resolve the scheduling conflicts between irrigated farming and animal herding through labor specialization.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Farming strategies of 1st millennium CE agro-pastoralists on the southern foothills of the Tianshan Mountains: A geoarchaeological and macrobotanical investigation of the Mohuchahangoukou (MGK) site, Xinjiang, China

Storozum

Tian

et al. 2019

PLoS ONE

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“…However, due to decomposition processes in nonwaterlogged surface conditions, botanical macro-remains are only rarely available. Analysis of Phytoliths (siliceous botanical remains) are another method used to understand past vegetation cover, but they are most consistently produced by grasses and sedges and therefore limited to these plant types (Piperno and Becker, 1996;Fredlund and Tieszen, 1997;Alexandre et al, 1999;Carnelli et al, 2004;Meister et al, 2017). Analysis of stable isotopes, mainly carbon isotope δ 13 C from soil organic matter, can give evidence of the balance between C3 and C4 plants.…”

Section: New Molecular Methods For Assessing Present-day and Past Biotamentioning

confidence: 99%

Biotic drivers of river and floodplain geomorphology – New molecular methods for assessing present‐day and past biota

Larsen

Alvarez

Sperisen

et al. 2017

Earth Surf Processes Landf

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Geomorphology has increasingly considered the role of biotic factors as controls upon geomorphic processes across a wide range of spatial and temporal scales. Where timescales are long (centennial and longer), it has been possible to quantify relationships between geomorphic processes and vegetation using, for example, the pollen record. However, where the biotic agents are fauna, longer term reconstruction of the impacts of biological activity upon geomorphic processes is more challenging. Here, we review the prospect of using environmental DNA as a molecular proxy to decipher the presence and nature of faunal influences on geomorphic processes in both present and ancient deposits. When used appropriately, this method has the potential to improve our understanding of biotic drivers of geomorphic processes, notably fauna, over long timescales and so to reconstruct how such drivers might explain the landscape as we see it today. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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“…The motive for the early Bronze Age expansion of water harvesting and terrace agriculture in Jawa, northeast Jordan, for example, is difficult to ascertain. However, it is noteworthy that the age of the water harvesting systems at the site (Meister et al, ) corresponds with the aforementioned 5.2 ka drying event. On the other hand, water harvesting by the Nabateans of Petra from around 2–1.2 ka (Beckers, Schutt, Tsukamoto, & Frechen, ) seems to correspond to a wetter episode in the southeastern Mediterranean at the time (Dermody et al, ).…”

Section: The Archaeological Datasetsmentioning

confidence: 99%

20,000 years of societal vulnerability and adaptation to climate change in southwest Asia

et al. 2019

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The Fertile Crescent, its hilly flanks and surrounding drylands has been a critical region for studying how climate has influenced societal change, and this review focuses on the region over the last 20,000 years. The complex social, economic, and environmental landscapes in the region today are not new phenomena and understanding their interactions requires a nuanced, multidisciplinary understanding of the past. This review builds on a history of collaboration between the social and natural palaeoscience disciplines. We provide a multidisciplinary, multiscalar perspective on the relevance of past climate, environmental, and archaeological research in assessing present day vulnerabilities and risks for the populations of southwest Asia. We discuss the complexity of palaeoclimatic data interpretation, particularly in relation to hydrology, and provide an overview of key time periods of palaeoclimatic interest. We discuss the critical role that vegetation plays in the human–climate–environment nexus and discuss the implications of the available palaeoclimate and archaeological data, and their interpretation, for palaeonarratives of the region, both climatically and socially. We also provide an overview of how modelling can improve our understanding of past climate impacts and associated change in risk to societies. We conclude by looking to future work, and identify themes of “scale” and “seasonality” as still requiring further focus. We suggest that by appreciating a given locale's place in the regional hydroscape, be it an archaeological site or palaeoenvironmental archive, more robust links to climate can be made where appropriate and interpretations drawn will demand the resolution of factors acting across multiple scales. This article is categorized under: Human Water > Water as Imagined and Represented Science of Water > Water and Environmental Change Water and Life > Nature of Freshwater Ecosystems

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Desert agricultural systems at EBA Jawa (Jordan): Integrating archaeological and paleoenvironmental records

Cited by 28 publications

References 87 publications

Farming strategies of 1st millennium CE agro-pastoralists on the southern foothills of the Tianshan Mountains: A geoarchaeological and macrobotanical investigation of the Mohuchahangoukou (MGK) site, Xinjiang, China

Farming strategies of 1st millennium CE agro-pastoralists on the southern foothills of the Tianshan Mountains: A geoarchaeological and macrobotanical investigation of the Mohuchahangoukou (MGK) site, Xinjiang, China

Biotic drivers of river and floodplain geomorphology – New molecular methods for assessing present‐day and past biota

20,000 years of societal vulnerability and adaptation to climate change in southwest Asia

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