Social Complexity in Northern Jordan

Presents the results of recent archaeological fieldwork at Tell Ya’moun and Tell al-Assara in Northern Jordan, showing how social complexity evolved during the first millennium BCE.

This open access investigation of Northern Jordan in the first millennium BCE offers invaluable insights into the mechanisms of social complexity, showing how communities adapted to their environments, negotiated power and interacted with their neighbours. The Iron Age Levant is a pivotal epoch in human history, representing a crucial phase in the evolution of complex societies. This era witnessed the emergence of new political structures, economic systems and cultural expressions that have had a lasting impact on subsequent civilizations. With the focus on Northern Jordan, a region much less studied than the surrounding areas of Israel and Syria, the case studies of Tell Ya’moun and Tell Al-assara present the most recent archaeological excavations and surveys from fortified settlement sites and their surroundings.

Individual chapters discuss topics such as observations on architecture; the results of different types of scientific analyses; and detailed analyses of specific artefacts such as pottery, stone vessels and bones. The contributors employ cutting-edge digital and analytical methodologies, such as such as soil geochemistry, isotope analysis, microbiology, aDNA, network analysis, GIS method and 3D technology. As a result, this book presents an important step forward in outlining the role of Northern Jordan in the political and cultural map of Iron-Age Levant, and it also sheds light on the origins of many modern cultural and religious practices.

The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-ND 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com. Open access was funded by the Research Council of Finland.