Stands of relict vegetation, soil horizons, and sedimentary deposits along with archaeological evidence suggest that during certain time spans within the past twenty millennia, Jordan was endowed with moister and more vegetated landscapes than the ones we see today. In this detailed volume, Carlos E. Cordova synthesizes diverse information on multiple topics to provide a comprehensive view of the changes in the Jordanian landscape and the many ways it has been affected by human habitation and the forces of nature.
Cordova focuses on geoarchaeological and cultural ecological aspects of research, presenting data from physical, chemical, and biological sources. He examines the changing influence of climate, vegetation, and hunting opportunities on cultural exploitation tactics, as well as the effects of the growing population and agriculture on the environment. Cordova argues that an interdisciplinary approach to studying the area is crucial to achieving a true understanding of Jordan’s changing landscape.
Chapter topics include approaches to the study of ancient Jordanian landscapes in the Near Eastern context; the physical scene; endowed landscapes of the woodlands; the encroaching drylands; the current and future state of the paleoecological and geoarchaeological record; patterns of millennial landscape change; and the process of interpreting millennial landscape change. The text is abundantly illustrated with photos, line illustrations, tables, and maps, providing a valuable assessment of archaeological developments over the prehistory and history of what today is the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. This volume will be especially welcomed by scholars interested in the archaeology, history, and geography of Jordan, the Levant, and the Near East and by field-school students working on archaeological projects in Jordan.

nexusstc/Millennial Landscape Change in Jordan: Geoarchaeology and Cultural Ecology/597531de1ec63054cb48efeffde6434f.pdf

lgrsnf/Geoarchaeology - CARLOS CORDOVA.pdf

zlib/Earth Sciences/Carlos E. Cordova/Millennial Landscape Change in Jordan: Geoarchaeology and Cultural Ecology_12390822.pdf

Cordova, Carlos E.

United States, United States of America

Tucson, Ariz, ©2007

3rd ed., PT, 2007

Tucson, c2007

May 17, 2007

lg3000129

producers:
OneVision PDFengine (Build 11.105.S)

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Cover 1
Half-title 3
Title 7
Copyright 8
Contents 9
Figures and Tables 13
Acknowledgements 23
Introduction 25
1. The Nature of Geoarchaeology 29
The nature of geoarchaeology and its practitioners 29
The three major traditions in geoarchaeology 32
The field and its status in the scientific realm 35
Practice, training, and the rapidly evolving subfields 40
2. Theoretical and Methodological Foundations 46
Introduction 46
Theory in geoarchaeology 46
The geoarchaeological method 49
Geoarchaeological models of inquiry and interpretation 52
Reconstructing and reproducing the past 56
The explanation of a complex and chaotic world 60
Concluding remarks 61
3. The Geoarchaeological Record: Concept and Contexts 62
An epistemological background 62
An all-inclusive geoarchaeological record 64
The interpretation of the record 75
4. The Geoarchaeological Record: Interpretation Issues 80
Visualizing time, causality, and context 80
Causality in natural and cultural transform processes 85
Time-transgressive phenomena in the record 86
Archaeological visibility, invisibility, and absence 88
The virtues of off-site geoarchaeology 90
Legacy effects, relicts, and palimpsests 91
Modern analogs, reference analogs, and modern references 94
Sampling and interpretation of the record 95
Correlation and its issues 96
5. The Human-Environmental Tradition in Geoarchaeology 99
Introduction 99
The ecological paradigm 99
The ecological context in geoarchaeology 101
Geoarchaeology since Archaeology as Human Ecology 105
Global climate change and the rise of the Anthropocene 106
Perspectives on the human and non-human worlds 108
Geoarchaeology and environmental history 110
6. Geoarchaeology and Human Evolution 112
Introduction 112
Geology, climate changes, and biogeography 115
Geoarchaeology in paleoanthropological research 118
Contexts and issues 119
Case 6.1: Context and scale in the Olduvai hominin record 125
7. Geoarchaeology and the Anthropization of the World 128
Introduction 128
The proto-anthropic period as a “gray zone” 128
Geoarchaeology and the pre- and proto-anthropic periods 132
Case 7.1: Between paleoontological and archaeological sites: Geoarchaeological issues in Pre-Clovis mammoth localities 134
Case 7.2: The geoarchaeology of early Australian human environments at Lake Mungo 141
8. The Geoarchaeology of Hunter-Gatherer Landscapes 146
Introduction 146
Hunter-gatherer societies and their environmental contexts 146
Geoarchaeological approaches to hunter-gatherer landscapes 149
Case 8.1: Epipaleolithic hunter-gatherers of the Eastern Levant: Sites, settings, and landscapes in a rapidly changing environment 150
Case 8.2: The geoarchaeology of the Archaic period in the Great Plains of North America 156
9. The Record of Early Agriculture and its Diffusion 161
Introduction 161
Agricultural beginnings: Contextual models 162
Neolithic impacts on the environment at different scales 163
Geoarchaeological contexts and research strategies 164
Case 9.1: Geoarchaeology of two Near Eastern Neolithic settlements: Ain Ghazal and Ain Abu-Nukhaila, and the first agricultural environmental crisis 165
Case 9.2: The arrival of pastoralism around Lake Ngami: Records from sites and lake sediments 173
10. Complex Societal-Environmental Systems and the Collapse Phenomenon 176
Introduction 176
Complex societal-environmental systems 176
The collapse phenomenon 177
Research contexts 181
Case 10.1: Ancient sustainability, risks, management, and centralization in large river basins: Three examples 182
Case 10.2: The Classic Maya collapse and the degradation of soils in the Maya lowlands: Geoarchaeological models of landscape transformation 186
11. The Geoarchaeology of Rural Landscapes 192
Introduction 192
The rural landscape: Concepts and environmental approaches 192
Geoarchaeological strategies in ancient rural contexts 195
Case 11.1: The Ancient Greek rural landscape in southwestern Crimea 196
Case 11.2: Xaltocan: The geoarchaeology of a complex lacustrine society before Tenochtitlan 202
12. Human-Environmental Approaches to Soils and Paleosols 207
Introduction 207
Thematic approaches to paleosols 208
Natural and anthropic spectra in soil formation 211
Case 12.1: Pastureland, cropland, and other past human activities in the geoarchaeological record below Brussels: A look into urban dark earths 214
Case 12.2: The understated human influence on North American prairie soils: The concept of bison paleopastures 217
13. The Geoarchaeology of Natural Disasters 223
Natural disasters in the human-environmental context 223
Geoarchaeological approaches to natural disasters 224
Contextual levels and issues of interpretation 226
Case 13.1: The Xitle Volcano catastrophe and its impact on the Preclassic and Classic environmental contexts in the Basin of Mexico 227
Case 13.2: The geoarchaeological record of Hurricane Katrina’s disaster in New Orleans 234
14. Environmental Crises in the Geoarchaeological Record 239
Introduction 239
Environmental crises and their relation to societal collapse 239
What do environmental crises look like in the geoarchaeological record? 242
Case 14.1: The Old World environmental crisis at the end of the Third Millennium BC as seen in the degradation of Levantine flood plains 243
Case 14.2: The Dust Bowl in the (future) geoarchaeological record of the Great Plains of North America 247
15. Native and Colonial Landscapes 252
Introduction 252
Human-environmental interactions in the context of colonial encounters 253
Environmental response and native and non-native legacies in the landscape 254
Case 15.1: The Spanish colonial land system on an Aztec landscape: An example from the Basin of Mexico 255
Case 15.2: The transformation of the South African landscapes through colonial encounters: A proposal for researching the geoarchaeological record 258
16. Geoarchaeology and Modern Traditional Societies 263
Introduction 263
Definition of concepts and research fields 263
Ethnogeoarchaeology: Definition and scope 265
Case 16.1: Modern and ancient irrigation systems in southern Mexico 269
17. Geoarchaeology of the Contemporary Past 276
Introduction 276
The contemporary past defined 276
Human-environmental relations as continuous processes 277
Towards a geoarchaeology of the contemporary past 278
Case 17.1: The legacies of the Soviet period in the geoarchaeological record: The Crimean case 280
References 287
Index 315

2021-04-29