Palaeoenvironmental Studies

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Aims

(1) The sedimentological history of the Jordan Valley will be assessed from published data and from new field studies. A key requirement will be undertaking of ultra-high resolution dating of sediments and vegetation units (pollen) of the modern (< 100 years old) fluvial system (using short-lived isotopes in the U-series chain and 14C) in order to test the modern climate-hydrological model.

(2) High-resolution dating of key sequences (AMS-14C, TL and U-series) of pollen, charcoal, fine-grained sands and continental carbonate- and sulphate-rich deposits (Dead Sea) will be undertaken to create a chronostratigraphy and vegetational history for the Jordan Valley area including the Dead Sea coastline. These data will be important in testing the climate-hydrological models of the past (as above) and a GIS feedback data set will be constructed for each time slice. Sampling for these will be critical and will be collected from the region at new sites already identified, and from known sequences (e.g. The Hula Basin). In addition, a study of the micro- and macro-botanical remains from the archaeological sites and palaeoenvironmental contexts will also be undertaken to link human activity into the feedback data sets.

Scientific papers

Robinson, S.A., Black, S., Sellwood, B. W. and Valdes, P.J. (2006). A review of palaeoclimates in the Levant and Eastern Mediterranean from 25,000 to 5,000 years BP: setting the environmental background for the evolution of human civilization. Quaternary Science Reviews, 25, 1517-1541.

Whitehead, P.G., S.J. Smith, A.J. Wade, S.J.Mithen, B.L.Finlayson, and B.Sellwood Modelling of Hydrology and Population levels at Bronze Age Jawa: A Monte-Carlo approach to cope with uncertainty (submitted to Journal of Archaeological Science and published in preliminary form as a WLC working paper)

Newsletter articles

Rambeau (2006) Palaeoenvironmental studies: a multi-proxy reconstruction of the sedimentological history of Jordan and adjacent areas (~20,000 BCE - present day) Water, Life and Civilisation Newsletter (Download)

Second annual meeting (Jan 2007) presentation (Download powerpoint)

June 2006 progress meeting presentation (Download powerpoint)

First annual meeting (Download powerpoint)

8th June WLC science meeting progress report (Download powerpoint)

Year 2 report (Download)

Year 1 report (Download)

Implementation plan (Download pdf)

Last updated: 16 January, 2008