Landscape and prehistoric chronology of West‐Central Jordan

Abstract

Remnant lake and stream terraces of the Wadi el Hasa (west‐central Jordan) are associated with in situ prehistoric sites spanning > 100,000 years. Eighteen radiocarbon dates from cultural and geological deposits on the terraces facilitate the first comprehensive prehistoric landscape chronology for the southern Levant east of the Jordan Rift. In the eastern Hasa basin, the uppermost of three cut and fill surfaces (>20 m) is linked to massive fossil spring deposits and an early Middle Paleolithic occupation (100,000–70,000 B. P.), suggestive of considerably wetter climates. A later Middle Paleolithic occupation may be synchronous with the emergence of Pleistocene Lake Hasa (ca. 70,000 B. P.). Peak lake levels were attained 40,000 years ago. Dates proliferate after 25,000 B. P. and register recession of Lake Hasa (ca. 20,000 B. P.), an intervening erosional phase, and the initiation of complex humid‐desiccation cycles for the terminal Pleistocene—Holocene (17,000–9,000 B. P.). The contemporary Wadi el Hasa channel began aggrading its floodplain after 8000 B. P. and was incised to its present depths 1000–500 years ago. The prehistoric landscape history of the Hasa drainage is broadly synchronous with sequences in the Rift Valley and Negev desert and offers baseline chronologies for the Late Quaternary of eastern Jordan and the Arabian peninsula. © 1994 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Formation processes at the Ohalo II submerged prehistoric campsite, Israel, inferred from soil micromorphology and magnetic susceptibility studies

“…Although superimposition of anthropogenic and geomorphic factors is still difficult to unravel at Ohalo II, the geoarchaeological observations clearly bear significance for both interpretations of spatial variability of archaeological features and refining of the model of Lake Lisan/ Sea of Galilee late evolution. Our data allow a better understanding of human cultural adaptations to lacustrine environments during late Pleistocene times in a broader Levantine context (Goldberg, 1994), challenging comparisons with early lacustrine sites in Wadi Hasa, Jordan (Schuldenrein and Clark, 1994;Coinman, 1998) and other arid areas.…”

A Reassessment of the holocene stratigraphy of the Wadi Hasa Terrace and Hasa formation, Jordan

“…815 m (Clark, 1984;Schuldenrein and Clark, 1994;Schuldenrein, 1998). Upper Paleolithic sites were linked with the maximum lake transgression.…”

“…Regional bedrock consists of basement Upper Pre-Cambrian to Upper Cretaceous sandstones, limestones, basalts, and unconsolidated Tertiary sediments (Donahue and Beynon, 1988). The Upper Hasa cuts through the 10-20 m Pleistocene lake terraces where many Upper and Epipaleolithic sites have been found (Schuldenrein and Clark, 1994;Coinman, 1998). Hill (2002) has subdivided the drainage basin into component geographic zones.…”

Don’t abhor your neighbor for he is a pastoralist: the GIS-based modeling of the past human–environment interactions and landscape changes in the Wadi el-Hasa, west-central Jordan

“…On the other hand, the ideal source for such approximations of ancient topography would be a "PaleoDEM" (Barton et al, in press), which relies on detailed geoarcheological data from a region in order to reconstruct ancient topography by erasing recent changes, such as channeling. Although there had been considerable geoarchaeological research in the Hasa (Schuldenrein and Clark, 1994, 2001, 2003, the drainage is too big to make an attempt to prepare a Paleo DEM with the existing body of geoarcheological data.…”