ABSTRACT
In the 1970s the Expedition to the Dead Sea Plain (EDSP) adopted many exciting new developments in archaeological methodology, building a multidisciplinary research program that included archaeologists, geologists, physical anthropologists, and specialists in faunal, botanical, textile, and pollen analyses. With a research agenda focusing on Early Bronze Age (EBA, ca. 3500–2000 bce) regional settlement patterns, environment, community life, and mortuary practices, the EDSP excavated portions of three cemeteries (Bab adh-Dhra‘, Fifa and Khirbat al-Khanazir), complementing research at the associated town sites of Bab adh-Dhra‘ and Numayra (see Chapter 28). The cemetery excavations at Bab adh-Dhra‘, Fifa, and al-Khanazir provide crucial insights into the lives and deaths of the EBA inventors of the region’s earliest walled towns (Ortner and Frohlich, in press).
