British Academy: The UK's National Academy for the Humanities and Social Sciences
Water, life and civilisation: studies on 20,000 years of environmental change and human settlement in the Jordan Valley
Professor Steven Mithen FBA (University of Reading) on behalf of the Council for British Research in the Levant
This presentation reviews on-going research by a team of archaeologists, meteorologists, hydrologists and geographers on the impacts of changing climate and water availability on prehistoric, historic, contemporary and future societies in the Jordan Valley.
The Council for British Research in the Levant has enabled these major projects funded by the Leverhulme Trust and the AHRC to proceed by facilitating research through its local contacts, by obtaining necessary official permissions, and the provision of facilities and staff time, both administrative and as senior participants in the research teams.
For further information, visit: www.waterlifecivilisation.org; www.cbrl.org.uk/
Summary
The Jordan Valley has a remarkable record of human settlement. Beginning more than one million years ago with the evidence of some of the earliest Homo dispersals from Africa, there is a rich record of prehistoric settlement, including the earliest farming villages in the world and the development of proto-urban communities, followed by an equally impressive record of Roman, Byzantine and Islamic occupation.
The modern-day landscape continues to evolve, especially in light of expansions in population, industry and tourism. Throughout this period, water availability has been a constant factor conditioning the nature of settlement; indeed to understand the key developments in human society one must understand both the natural supply of water from precipitation and ground water, and the manner in which this been managed and manipulated.
This issue is particularly pertinent today in light of increasing demands on the water supply and predictions of increasing aridity arising from climatic change. It is appropriate, therefore, that two of the UK’s largest research projects in the region are exploring the nature of water and society from 20,000 years ago to 100 years into the present. One of these is the Water, Life & Civilisation project, funded by the Leverhulme Trust and based at the University of Reading. It brings together a unique suite of researchers from archaeology, meteorology, geography, hydrology and environmental science, to explore how the pattern of water availability has changed (and will further change) throughout this period, what impact this has had on society, and how human communities have devised ways to manage and manipulate the supply. The second project is the WF16 Excavation Project, funded by the AHRC, which is exploring the nature of human settlement at the Holocene/Pleistocene transition in southern Jordan. The presentation will provide an overview of both projects, stressing the value of inter-disciplinary research for exploring the past, present and future and the essential support provided by the CBRL for research of this nature.
Other contributors
School of Human & Environmental Sciences, University of Reading