Scarcity of water is a major problem in many parts of the Near East today and in the past. In order to survive in such a region people have to be able to structurally procure more water than... Show moreScarcity of water is a major problem in many parts of the Near East today and in the past. In order to survive in such a region people have to be able to structurally procure more water than rainfall alone can supply. The archaeology of this area should not only identify when people inhabited such a region and what the character of this habitation was, but also how people were able to survive in such a region and why they chose it in the first place. In this book these questions have been posed of the Zerqa Triangle: a region in the middle Jordan Valley around Tell Deir ‘All? (Jordan). The intensity of habitation of the region from the Neolithic to early modern periods was investigated by means of a detailed pedestrian archaeological survey. Efforts have been undertaken to reconstruct the agricultural practices in the various periods and simultaneously the means by which the different communities were able to practise agriculture; in other words, how did they irrigate the land? By focussing on the varying social responses of communities, conclusions have been drawn on how and why people created a living in this arid, but potentially very fertile region. Show less
