Introduction

Description of proposed research

The ultimate goal in my PhD dissertation is to compare diachronic site structure and patterns of nomadic pastoral land-use and social structure in the Levant. A particular problem I want to address concerns the role of nomads in the transition from the Pre-Pottery Neolithic (PPN) (~10,000-7500YBP) and the Late (or Pottery) Neolithic (~7500-5000YBP) in the Levant. I believe the origins of nomadic pastoralism in the Near East lie very close to the beginning of domestication, and most probably occurred before the end of the PPN. I am interested in the theoretical connection between the spread of pastoralism and the shift from large centralized agrarian settlements in the PPN to widely dispersed small horticultural farmsteads in the Late Neolithic in parts of the southern Levant. My dissertation research will pay special attention to this transition as a particular case study of ancient Nomad—Settled interactions which will hopefully serve to illustrate the complex and multi-faceted nature of social dynamics in the prehistoric Levant.

 I would like to use the expertise in GIS-based predictive modeling I gained during my masters-level research on modern Bedouin campsite location, to implement similar modeling technology with which to analyze some of the extensive archaeological survey databases that are available from research done in the countries of Jordan, Isreal, and Egypt (Sinai). In particular, I would first like to test the hypotheses that so-called “burin sites”, "desert kites", and "stone circle sites" are actually the archaeological remains of ancient nomadic pastoral encampments by investigating if the pastoral nature of  these site types can be corroborated by predictive site location models based on known pastoral site location behavior. After this, I would then like to sample a large amount of the most confidently identified pastoral campsites from the various Neolithic and Chalcolithic time periods, and use GIS, spatial analysis, and statistical methodology to examine the spatial relationships between campsites of different ages as well as between campsites and any contemporaneous permanent agricultural towns or farmsteads in their vicinity.

In conjunction with the regional analyses described above, I also want to excavate selected campsites of different temporality and use geoarchaeological analysis of site formation processes and microarchaeological techniques along with more conventional excavation methodology to develop a fine-grained picture of intra-site spatial patterning and site structure. Beyond simply documenting changes in the social patterning of nomads through time, I am interested in viewing the trajectory of socio-cultural change in the nomadic populations in comparison with contemporaneous changes in the social patterning of more sedentary agricultural societies in the same area. Hopefully, this research will allow us to understand the complexities of the long term relationship between the settled and the nomad, and how this relationship may have helped fuel the myriad cultural, technological, and environmental changes that have happened since the beginning of the Holocene and which been documented throughout the Near East and the entire Mediterranean region. 

Latest Info

        *NEW* Click HERE to download a pdf of the latest draft of my NSF Dissertation Improvement Aid Grant proposal for                              this project! (March, 2008)

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URL » http://www.public.asu.edu/~iullah/index.html • Updated » 2007-Jan-19

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