ABSTRACT
The Northern Jordan Project (NJP) is an archaeo-environmental investigation of northern Jordan between Irbid and the Yarmouk River during the Middle and Late Islamic periods. The area was chosen because of its excellent preservation of structures of these periods and the rich historical documentation of the region in Arabic sources, which allude to a degree of agricultural prosperity throughout the early Modern era. The NJP study area includes a high plateau above the eastern slopes of the northern Jordan Valley, a land enjoying temperate weather and good soil. It is an emerging area of inquiry within environmental history that grew out of the sub-disciplines of historical geography and political economy to analyze, in part, the social and political effects of environmental change. The NJP is a truly multidisciplinary project that pulls on written sources, archaeological data, architectural analysis, soil and pollen studies, and ethnography to examine village histories within the larger contexts of landscape development and climatic change.
