ABSTRACT
Previous surveys and excavations in Wadi al-Hasa of west-central Jordan have found that al-Hasa has one of the richest records of intensive human use in the Levant during the late phases of the last Ice Age or Pleistocene epoch (ca. 70–12,000 years ago). The upper eastern basin of al-Hasa was a dynamic mosaic of changing landscapes that there were characterized by a series of shallow lakes, ponds, and fresh-water springs, as well as extensive playas and marshes. Such dynamic landscapes formed the backdrops against which humans elaborated complex and intimate relationships between their settlement organization, their subsistence strategies, and their resilient stone tool technologies. Few people today would recognize al-Hasa as an attractive habitat for Pleistocene hunter-gatherers (Fig. 1). In contrast to today’s desolate landscape, the late Pleistocene landscape was a veritable ‘oasis’ and would have attracted a wide spectrum of animal species, such as wild horses, cattle, pigs, camels, ostriches, and gazelle, along with the hunters who preyed upon them. Research at six of the Upper and Epipaleolithic sites in the al-Hasa documents ‘midnight at the oasis’ and the irrevocable changes in human lifestyles that occurred during the terminal stages of the Pleistocene. These sites have increased our understanding of successful hunter-gatherer adaptations in the Levant, in general, and of the lesser-known but equally rich prehistory of Jordan.
