Jordan - An Archaeological Reader - Russell B. Adams
The Palaeolithic Period, including the Epipalaeolithic
Jordan - An Archaeological Reader - Russell B. Adams
Deborah Olszewski [+]
University of Pennsylvania and Penn Museum
Deborah I. Olszewski specializes in the Upper Paleolithic and Epipaleolithic of the Middle East, where she has been involved in several projects in Jordan, including the Wadi Hasa Paleolithic Project (directed by G.A. Clark), the Eastern Hasa Late Pleistocene Project (co-directed with N.R. Coinman), and the Western Highlands Early Epipaleolithic Project (co-directed with M. al-Nahar). Her interests include the origins of food production economies and the application of interpretations of lithic assemblages to understanding hunter-gatherer-forager settlement systems. She is Adjunct Professor in the Department of Anthropology, University of Pennsylvania.
Description
The modern country of Jordan is within the eastern or inland Levant, a region that has undergone striking cli- matic and ecological change during the course of the approximately 450,000 years of its Palaeolithic prehistory. Its story of ancient humans is one told largely through the stone tools they discarded, their campsites, the remains of their food, and the reconstruction of the landscapes they inhabited. More rarely, this story also includes evidence from burials and of artistic expression. The study of these Palaeolithic groups and their lifeways is part of a research tradition with a lengthy history, one which has acceler- ated at a dramatic pace since the 1970s.