Extreme Archaeology — Underneath Jordan

Abstract

Prelude It seemed like a good idea at the time. Sitting in Sydney, designing a new project for a potential new job at the CBRL: something that could be done in a few years, add value and address an interesting question in a sexy, quirky way... It had previously struck me that there were no known Chalcolithic cave sites in Jordan, and yet there were beginning to be dozens in Israel and Palestine. The same types of Chalcolithic settlement sites are documented on both sides of the river and yet no Chalcolithic cave sites like the Cave of the Treasure (Nahal Mishmar) or Nahal Qanah (where the famous gold rings were located) were known from Jordan at all. The pace of development in Israel was turning up caves by accident, but Jordan was much less developed and there was no culture of adventure caving. I wondered whether this was simply a case of ‘if you don’t look you don’t find’. Simple, I thought, let’s do a survey and see if it is true — no one’s tried that before!