The origins, development and practice of economic and social strategies in the Middle East from earliest times to the modern day
This theme includes the study of late Pleistocene hunter-gatherer developments of agriculture and sedentism. The start of the Neolithic has always represented a major Near Eastern research theme. Despite discoveries of independent processes around the world, it appears that the Near Eastern developments remain the earliest, and for European developments, the most important. Recent research has indicated that there are two keys areas within the Levant, the southern Levant and the northern Euphrates. CBRL is actively involved in research in the southern area, and in projects in Lebanon which potentially connect the two areas. The theme however also includes later developments in nomadism, modern economics and sociology. These are critical to the current development of society in the region, with specific issues such as the settlement of the Bedouin and large scale refugee and migrant worker population movements.
CBRL has been supporting the following projects:
Ain Qasiyeh Project/Epipalaeolithic Foragers in Azraq Project
Affiliated ProjectDr Tobias Richter (University College London)
Project Website
An examination of the social change in the Cypro-Geometric period
Travel grantSarah Janes (University of Glasgow)
Badia Development Project
Affiliated ProjectDr Roderick Dutton (University of Durham), the Jordanian Higher Council for Science and Technology, and the Royal Geographical Society
This is a long-term initiative (running for 10 years so far) where CBRL has supported a series of sub-projects and provided a base for visiting senior academics and postgraduate scholars.
Beidha Conservation and Presentation
CBRL Staff ProjectProf Bill Finlayson (CBRL), University of Edinburgh and the Department of Antiquities, Jordan
A joint project with Dr Mohammed Najjar (Dept of Antiquities) and Samantha Dennis (PhD student) to protect the important Neolithic site of Beidha and demonstrate how sites of this period may be presented to the public. This is also supported by the British Embassy (Amman) and has now developed EU links (Germany and Denmark) in the development of small-scale tourism with direct economic gains for the local population.
Casting the net wide: small worlds, material culture and social networks during the Epipalaeolithic and early Neolithic of the Near East
Travel grantDr Fiona Coward (Royal Holloway University of London)
Comparing systems of bureaucratic power in Syria and Saudi Arabia
Travel grantDr Steffan Hertog (Durham University)
Contemporary visual arts and policy implications in Jordan
Travel grantSonja Buchberger (Leeds Metropolitan University)
Crop growing and burial experiments to determine the effect of irrigation and diagenesis on the carbon and nitrogen stable isotope composition of cereals
Travel grantPascal Flohr (University of Reading)
Dhra’ Excavation
CBRL Staff ProjectProf Bill Finlayson (CBRL) and Ian Kuijt (University of Notre Dame)
Project Website
Multi-disciplinary project that seeks to recover data on the transition from foraging to farming. Dhra’ is the only known apparently sedentary village from the PPNA outside the Mediterranean woodland zone and contains data critical to the PPNA social and economic adaptations. Final field season completed 2005.
Dichotomies in the Syrian Media landscape
Travel grantJuliette Harkin (Oxford University)
The End of Mamluk Dhiban
Affiliated ProjectDr Bruce Routledge (University of Liverpool)
A study of the abandonment of a Mamluk village and its use in the Ottoman period, representative of an important phenomenon in the shaping of modern Jordan. The project will integrate archaeological research, sustainable site development and direct community engagement in heritage interpretation, management and presentation .
An examination of the social change in the Cypro-Geometric period
Travel grantSarah Janes (University of Glasgow)
Experimental Archaeology at Beidha (Jordan)
CBRL Scholar ProjectSamantha Dennis (formerly CBRL, University of Edinburgh)
Reconstructing a series of early Neolithic structures for research and presentational purposes. Part of a larger conservation and presentation project organized by CBRL with the Department of Antiquities of Jordan.
Geoarchaeological approaches to social space in prehistoric western Cyprus
Travel GrantMatt Dalton (University of Cambridge)
Islamic feminism: the beginning of a political discourse in Jordan?
Travel GrantSarah Weirich (SOAS)
Jordan's political and economic struggles against a water crisis
Travel grantMartin Keulertz (SOAS)
Nachcharini Cave Excavations (Lebanon)
Affiliated ProjectDr Andrew Garrard (University College London)
The Nebekian and Kebaran at Ayn Qasiyah
Travel grantTobias Richter (University College London)
Neolithic communal architecture and the emergence of corporate groups
Travel grantAlexis McBride (University of Liverpool)
The origins of agriculture: A biocultural analysis of diet, health, and behaviour in the Neolithic Levant
Travel grantMatthew Gasperetti (University of Cambridge)
Origins of the Islamic marketplace and its role in socio-economic exchange in the Middle East
Travel grantIan Roderick Simpson (Stanford University)
The Palestinian reform and development plan: promoting development in a conflict-country context
Research GrantDr Mandy Turner (University of Bradford)
Qadisha Valley Early Prehistory (Lebanon) (2003-2006)
Research Award, Affiliated ProjectDr Andrew Garrard (University College London) & Dr Corine Yazbeck (St. Joseph's University Beirut)
Team Members: Dr Martin Bates (University of Wales, Lampeter), Dr Gassia Artin (University of Lyon)
Project Website
The Qadisha Valley Project is the first prehistoric field research in Lebanon for 30 years and has successfully moved from an initial CBRL grant to larger scale BA funding. It was initiated to explore the adaptations of Palaeolithic and Neolithic communities to the highly mesic forested environments of the north Lebanese Mountains. In summer 2003 a survey was undertaken at various elevations in the valley system, and the team found extensive traces of early prehistoric activity. Of particular interest was a cluster of three cave-sites at Moghr el Ahwal, where surface material was recovered dating from the Lower Palaeolithic through to the Late Neolithic. During summer 2004, excavations were undertaken in the central of the three caves (Cave 2). Although the prehistoric deposits were shallow, they included well preserved occupational horizons relating to the Geometric Kebaran, Natufian and the Late Neolithic. This included a rare human burial with grave goods from the Geometric Kebaran and secondary or disturbed burials from the Natufian. Subsistence strategies show a shift from the hunting of species such as roe deer and wild goat in the Epipalaeolithic to animal herding in the Late Neolithic.
Reconstructing Social Agency through use-wear analysis in the Natufian of the Levant
CBRL Scholar projectTobias Richter (Copenhagen University and University of Cambridge, formerly CBRL)
Reforming Syria: how viable is the on-going political and economic reform process?
Travel grantChaouki Boutharouite (SOAS)
Villages of Crusader Transjordan: a survey of archaeological resources
Travel grantMicaela Sinibaldi (Cardiff University)
Women of Hamas: Social and political activism since 1987
Senior visiting fellowshipDr Marion Boulby (Trent University)
Additional activities
- A conference on the subject of "Neolithic Revolution," with a special focus on the early prehistory of Cyprus, was published as part of the Levant Supplementary Series.
- Organization of a session on "Formal typology, function and chronology within the PPNA: Views from the southern Levant" at the Neolithic conference in Fréjus, 2005.
- A conference was organised in 2007 on the subject of "Landscapes in Transition: Understanding hunter-gatherer and farming landscapes in the early Holocene of Europe and the Levant" to bring together perspectives from NW Europe and the Levant.