The hydraulic legacy of the desert: 9,000 years of sustainable water resources management in N Arabia

• Applicant: Dr.-Ing. Kai Wellbrock
• Subject Area: Egyptology and Ancient Near Eastern Studies
• Term: from 2019 to 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 437045338

The (semi-) arid deserts of N Arabia are occupied by mobile pastoral cultures since more than 9,000 years. Due to the lack of perennial water resources these societies had to develop and maintain suitable and adapted methods of water management in order to have their socioeconomies sustainably surviving in the arid lands. These methods result in the hydraulic manipulation of landscapes by influencing of the natural local hydrological conditions and processes, aiming to secure – at least temporal – water provision at certain sites. Over-exploitation of water sources is almost excluded by this; its traditional and vanishing environmental knowledge is truly sustainable and subject of record in this project: In terms of Applied Archaeohydrology, the use of the old techniques may contribute to face water shortage in arid areas. This pilot study aims to initially evaluate these methods of water management while it also prepares a case study for the new discipline of archaeohydrology. The region of the Wadis Sahab al- Abiad and al-Asmar with the central place Qulban Beni Murra in Southeast Jordan was chosen for this research.Mostly unknown are the types of (combined) water management techniques, to what extend a technical development is traceable for them during the millennia. Possibly, climatic and environmental shifts during Holocene have caused substantial socioeconomic changes (e.g. the occurrence of oasis sedentism by the 4th millennium BCE), but they may not have caused substantial hydraulic innovations beyond the standards of the (from then on parallel existing) transhumant pastoralists. Throughout the millennia, the extend of mobile pastoralism appears to remain subject to rather conservative water technologies adapting to changing water availabilities and climate, thus being a direct indicator for changing hydrological conditions.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: Jordan
• Cooperation Partner: Professor Dr. Hani Hayajneh