Archaeology and Environment of the Dead Sea Plain

The Archaeology and Environment of the Dead Sea Plain project provides new investigations of the cultural and natural history of the Dead Sea Plain. Our area of investigation comprises the Lisan Peninsula, which juts into the southeastern corner of the Dead Sea, the environs of the modern municipality of Mazra', and the hinterland of the municipality of Dhra' (Zahrat adh-Dhra'), situated between Mazra' to the west and the Jordan Valley margin to the east.

Excavations at two recently discovered and neighbouring sites at Zahrat adh-Dhra' are combined with lakebed coring and palynological analysis from the Dea Sea, as well as geomorphological and modern environmental investigations to elucidate the ways in which human settlement and agriculture have affected and been constrained by the local natural environment during the Holocene. In particular, the project highlights evidence from two of the region's most significant eras of prehistoric agricultural intensification: the Neolithic advent of farming and the Middle Bronze Age florescence of cities. The first excavated site, Zahrat adh-Dhra' 1 (ZAD 1), is an unusual Middle Bronze Age (ca. 2,000-1,500 BC) village; the second site, Zahrat adh-Dhra' 2 (ZAD 2), is a Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA) settlement (9,500 yr BP) situated only 200 meters from ZAD 1.