Steven Falconer
Professor
Ph.D., Archaeology, University of Arizona
SHESC Themes: Urban Societies
Field Specializations: Agrarian Societies, Archaeology, Complex Societies, Urban Studies
Regional Foci: Mediterranean, Near East
Contact: Steven Falconer, SHESC 102
Research:
Steve Falconer specializes in the prehistory and history of Southwestern Asia and the Mediterranean Basin, focusing on the growth and dissolution of complex societies. His current research concentrates on villages and household economies in early urbanized societies and the impacts of agrarian systems on ancient landscapes. He has directed multidisciplinary research projects at a series of four Bronze Age villages along the Jordan Rift in collaboration with the Department of Antiquities, Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan and the American Center of Oriental Research, Amman.
This research has been funded by grants from the National Science Foundation, the Australian Research Council, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Geographic Society and the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research. Falconer has inaugurated new field research on Bronze Age village life on Cyprus (with Patricia Fall) in collaboration with the Department of Antiquities, Republic of Cyprus and the Cyprus American Archaeological Research Institute, Nicosia.
Falconer is one of five ASU principal investigators on a recently-awarded $1.5 million NSF Biocomplexity grant to study Neolithic and Bronze Age land use and landscape formation in the Mediterranean Basin. Falconer has served as a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow at New York University, Research Fellow at La Trobe University (Melbourne) and the Australia National University (Canberra) and Visiting Scholar at the Cyprus American Archaeological Research Institute (Nicosia).
Research Projects:
Ancient Rural Ecology and Landscape Formation on Cyprus
Archaeology and Environment of the Dead Sea Plain
Bronze Age Village Life and Rural Ecology on Cyprus: Excavations at Politiko Troullia
Mediterranean Landscape Dynamics
Select Publications:
Falconer, S. E. and Redman, C. L. (Eds.) (2009). Polities and power: Archaeological perspectives on the landscapes of early states. Tucson: University of Arizona Press.
Falconer, S. E., Fall, P. & Jones, J. (2007). Life at the foundation of Bronze Age civilization: Agrarian villages in the Jordan Valley. In T. E. Levy, P. M. Michele Daviau, R. W. Younker & M. Shaer (Eds.), Crossing Jordan: North American contributions to the archaeology of Jordon. London: Equinox Publishing.
Fall, P. L., Falconer, S. E. & Edwards, P. C. (2007). Living on the edge: Settlement and abandonment on the Dead Sea Plain. In T. E. Levy, P. M. Michele Daviau, R. W. Younker & M. Shaer (Eds.), Crossing Jordan: North American contributions to the archaeology of Jordon. London: Equinox Publishing.
Falconer, S. E. & Fall, P. L. (2006). Bronze Age rural ecology and village life at Tell el-Hayyat, Jordan. British Archaeological Reports, International Series. Oxford: Archaeopress.
Fall, P.L., Falconer, S. E., Fall, Lines, L. & Metzger, M. (2004). Environmental impacts of the rise of civilization in the southern Levant. In C. L. Redman, P. R. Fish, S. R. James & J. D. Rogers (Eds.), Prehistoric human impact: Global perspectives on environmental degradation (pp. 261-291). Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press.
Falconer, S. E., Fall, P.L, Metzger, M. C. and Lines, L. (2003). Bronze Age rural economic transitions in the Jordan Valley. Annual of the American Schools of Oriental Research, 58, 1-17.
