Work in the "Black Desert" of eastern Jordan by the Eastern Badia Archaeological Project , a joint project of the Oriental Institute, and Senior Research Associate Yorke Rowan, and Whitman College, was featured in the Jordan Times in an article by Saeb Rawashdeh, "Piles of Rocks in Jordans' Black Desert Offer Clues to Ancient Past." The project has revealed numerous structures, previously unstudied, in the desert that indicate semi-permanent occupation in the area, a feature which has until now gone unrecognized.
Yorke Rowan will be giving an Oriental Institute Members' lecture on January 10, 2018 about "Kites, Tombs, and Houses in the 'Land of Conjecture:' New Discoveries in the Black Desert, Jordan" featuring work from the Eastern Badia Archaeological Project. This lecture was announced in a previous news post.
You can read more about the project and its results on the project's webpage and in the following resources:
Yorke M. Rowan. "Eastern Badia Archaeological Project." Oriental Institute Annual Report 2015~2016: 49-53.
Yorke M. Rowan. "Eastern Badia Archaeological Project: Wisad Pools, Jordan." Oriental Institute Annual Report 2014–2015: 43-51.
Yorke M. Rowan. "Eastern Badia Archaeological Project: Wisad Pools, Jordan." Oriental Institute Annual Report 2013–2014: 37-46.
Yorke M. Rowan. "Eastern Badeia Archaeological Project: Maitland's Mesa, Jordan." Oriental Institute Annual Report 2012-2013: 32-39.
Gary O. Rollefson, Yorke Rowan, and Alexander Wasse. "The Late Neolithic Colonization of the Eastern Badia of Jordan." Levant 46 (2014): 285-301.
Yorke M. Rowan, Gary O. Rollefson, A. Wasse, W. Abu-Azizeh, A. C. Hill, and M. M. Kersel. "Revelations in the 'Land of Conjecture:' New Late Prehisotric Discoveries at Maitland's Mesa and Wisad Pools. The Eastern Badia Archaeological Project, Jordan." Journal of Field Archaeology 40 (2015): 175-88.
An special issue of Near Eastern Archaeology 80:2 (2017) was devoted to Repopulating the Badia. It can be read online with a subscription to JSTOR.
