Reconstructing networks, linking spaces—the view from the Aqaba region (Jordan)

Abstract

The southern Levant has to be regarded as an important centre of early metallurgy; in this region, the rise of this technological innovation appears closely connected to intensified exchange networks of increasing significance. Recent fieldwork and research undertaken by the University of Jordan and the Orient Department of the German Archaeological Institute in the southern Wadi Araba near Aqaba (Jordan) has revealed new insights into the structure and progress of Late Chalcolithic–Early Bronze Age economic processes in the southern Levant. The sites of Tell Hujayrat al-Ghuzlan and Tell al-Magass produced a rich material culture that attests to the existence of an important centre of early copper metallurgy in the region, thus proving that technological and social innovations in the late 5th, early 4th millennia bc were not limited to north-western regions of the southern Levant. Material culture analogies from contemporaneous sites in the wider region, going beyond metallurgical activities and lithic industries, emphasize a common workshop tradition in these areas and indicate that the Aqaba region was actively participating in far-reaching communication and exchange networks at this time.