Extensification in a Mediterranean Semi-Arid Marginal Zone: An Archaeological Case Study from Early Iron Age Jordan's Eastern Karak Plateau

The extensification of agricultural systems into marginal lands is a common response to environmental,economic, and political pressures for more cultivable land. Yet the course that extensification takes inparticular instances is unpredictable given the choices available to producers. This article investigates aninstance of extensification during the late second millennium BCE on the semi-arid Eastern Karak Plateauin west-central Jordan. Architectural, faunal, and archaeobotanical evidence is presented from Khirbat al-Mudayna al-’Aliya, one of several communities that participated in an extensified settlement system onthe edge of the Wadi al-Mujib and its tributaries. Producers practiced agriculture and pastoralism in alow-intensity subsistence economy that supported a nucleated settlement of households. Faunal analysisdetermined goats were kept, and wild animals supplemented diets. Archaeobotanical analysis of charredplant remains from storage bins in a building destroyed byfire indicated that barley was stored in a semi-processed state and that harvesting by uprooting was practiced, thus resulting in the maximization of thestraw harvest. The riparian zone beneath the settlement was a key venue for subsistence activities. ThisEarly Iron Age example contrasts with later episodes of extensification whose settlement systems weremore dispersed and agro-pastoralist regime more integrated