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This report describes the second season of fieldwork by an interdisciplinaty team of archaeologists and geographers integrating geomorphological, palaeoecological, archaeological and hydrological studies to consttuct a model of landscape deaelopment for the past 10,000 years in the Wadi Faynan in southern Jordan. Geomorphological fieldwork has proaided further understanding of the sedimentary fills of the survey area, and underlined the importance of tectonic actiaity as a controlling environmental process. Oaer half of the complex field system WF4 has been recorded in terms of wall construction, surface artefacts, and hydrological features. A complex sequence of settlement and land use is emerging from these studies, especially regarding systems of floodwater farming oaer the past three thousand years. Field obsensations of wadi downcutting and preliminary pollen analltsis both suggest that one factor in this deztelopment has been considerable enztironmental change ozter the same period. Background (GWB)

This report describes the third season of fieldwork by an interdisciplinaty team of archaeologists and geographers working to reconsttuct the landscape history of the Wadi Faynan in southern Jordan oaer the past 200,000 years. The particular focus of the project is the long-tenn history of inter-relationships between landscape and people, as a contribution to the study of processes of deserffication and environmental degradation. The geomorphological and palaeoecological studies haz.te now established the outline sequence of landform changes and climatic fluctuations in the late Pleistocene and Holocene. The complex field system WF4 has now been recorded in its entirety in tenns of wall construction, surface artefacts, and hydrological features, as well as most of the outlying field ytstems. From these studies, in combination with the analysis of the surface artefacts, an outline sequence of the water utilization and management strategies they represent can now be discemed. Ethnoarchaeolog,t is also being used to inztestigate the present-day populations of the study area, their interactions with their landscape and with neighbouing socio-economic groups, in part to yield archaeological signatures to aid the interpretation of the surface remains being gathered by the archaeological suruey. Palynologt is shozaing that Roman/Byzantine agricuhure and mining sezterely impacted on the landscape in terms of deforestation; and geochemistry that Roman/Byzantine mining seaerelt polluted the landscape, the fficts of which are still apparent in the modem ecology of the study area.