Lauren Erker, MSc

 

This project will explore the archaeology of mobility and resiliency of peasant populations in Transjordan and Palestine over the course of the Ottoman period. Themes that will be explored include migration, settlement patterns, land use patterns, differences in social structures, identity and how these manifested in the landscape. The transregional comparison that this project aims to produce will facilitate research into the events that set these regions on different evolutionary trajectories, and how the events of the late medieval period set the stage for what would unfold in the modern period. Whereas scholars have tended to focus on late Ottoman period Palestine or Transjordan, this research will be a direct comparison of rural settlements between the two regions over the entirety of the Ottoman period, with a particular focus on the pre-Tanzimat era. An integral component of this project is the development of a typology of rural sites based on the plethora of Arabic terms found in historical texts of the period, reflecting an indigenous understanding of communal history.