Protecting Prehistory: Finding Late Neolithic sites in Jordan

The Late (or Pottery) Neolithic is a key period in the archaeology of Jordan, as it is during this time that we find the first farming communities as we imagine them, with the distinction between ‘desert and sown’ and the use of dairy products. However, the period remains understudied and is underrepresented in both ground and remote sensing surveys, and consequently in heritage databases. As has been shown in previous research (e.g. E. Banning) this probably does not reflect an actual absence of sites but rather their poor visibility and research biases. This poses a problem for protecting sites of this important period: to protect sites, we first need to know where they are. Using publications and existing datasets, information on Late Neolithic sites in Jordan was collected and recorded in the freely available EAMENA database (www.eamenadatabase.arch.ox.ac.uk). Over a hundred sites with reliable evidence for Late Neolithic occupation have already been entered (April 2018). The dataset confirms that there is no lack of Late Neolithic sites, but they are often poorly visible with little evidence visible on the surface, and a research bias is clearly present. Remote sensing (satellite images and aerial photographs) is used to assess the condition of each site, including existing damage and potential threats. Finally, an analysis is made of site locations – while sites are hard to see on imagery or even the surface, we might be able to establish a pattern to their locations creating a predictive model potentially of value for other prehistoric periods.