Madaba Plains Project (MPP)

[First posted in AWOL 6 February 2011, updated 1 February 2015]

Madaba Plains Project (MPP)

The Madaba Plains Project (MPP) has been involved in the archaeology of Jordan since 1968. MPP is currently conducting excavations at Tall al-'Umayri, Tall Hisban and Tall Jalul. Previous excavations were conducted at a number of small hinterland sites. In addition to these excavations, archaeological, environmental, and ethnographic surveys were carried out in the hinterland of each excavation site.

This page is meant to provide a convenient link to web publications on the archaeology of the Madaba Plain in Jordan and to survey data from the MPP hinterland surveys. The survey data section is new, and currently there is not much here, but there are links to GIS data for the 'Umayri survey and in the months to come, there will be additional data posted here.

Christopherson, Gary L.

	A Regional Approach to Archaeology on the Madaba Plain: Random Survey and Settlement Patterns (ASOR, 1997)
	Using ARC/GRID to Calculate Topographic Prominence in an Archaeological Landscape (Arc/INFO User Conference, 2003) Note that the links to graphics for this paper are broken. Since it is hosted by ESRI, I don't have control over this probelm. If you are interested in the graphics, follow this link to an html version of the paper -- topographic prominence html

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Christopherson, Gary L., Robert G. Boling, Jon A. Cole, David C. Hopkins, Gerald L. Mattingly, Douglas W. Schnurrenberger, & Randall W. Younker

Summary Descriptions of Archaeological Sites from the Survey at Tall al-'Umayri, Jordan

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Christopherson, Gary L. & Tisha K. Entz

Field Testing ARC GRID-Based Archaeological Probability Models in Jordan (Arc/INFO User Conference, 2001)

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Christopherson, Gary L. & D. Philip Guertin

	Soil Erosion, Agricultural Intensification, and Iron Age Settlement in the region of Tall al-'Umayri, Jordan (ASOR, 1995)
	Visibility Analysis and Ancient Settlement Strategies in the Region of Tall al-'Umayri, Jordan (ASOR, 1996)

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Christopherson, Gary L., D. Philip Guertin, & Karen A. Borstad

GIS and Archaeology: Using ARC/INFO to Increase Our Understanding of Ancient Jordan (ARC/INFO User Conference, 1996)

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Christopherson, Gary L., Larry G. Herr

Madaba Plains Project: Archaeological Survey Manual (October, 1997)

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Christopherson, Gary L., Patrick Barabe, Peter S. Johnson

Using ARC GRID's PATHDISTANCE Function to Model Catchment Zones for Archaeological Sites on the Madaba Plain, Jordan (ARC/INFO User Conference, 1999)

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Christopherson, Ruth A. (written in 1996, when she was 8 years old)

A Kid's View of Archaeology in Jordan

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Groves, Jennifer L., Karen A. Borstad, & Gary L. Christopherson

A Preliminary Report on the Tall Jalul Surface Sherding Project (ASOR 1995)

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Harrison, Timothy P.

	Tell Madaba Archaeological Project: 1996 Preliminary Report
	Tell Madaba Archaeological Project: 1998-2000 Preliminary Report
	Tell Madaba Archaeological Project: 2001 Preliminary Report
	Tell Madaba Archaeological Project: 2002 Preliminary Report

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LaBianca, Oystein S.

	Daily Life in the Shadow of Empire: A Food Systems Approach to the Archaeology of the Ottoman Empire (Conference on Ottoman Archaeology, 1996)
	Indigenous Hardiness Structures and State Formation In Jordan: Towards a History of Jordan's Resident Arab Population (Nordic Conference on Middle Eastern Studies, 1995)
	A Forest That Refuses to Disappear: Cycles of Environmental Degeneration and Regeneration in Jordan (Report to the National Geographic Society Research Grant Number 5758-96)

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LaBianca, Oystein S. , Larry G. Herr, Randall W. Younker, Lawrence T. Geraty, Douglas R. Clark

Report on the 1996 Field Season of the Madaba Plains Project

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Ray Jr., Paul J. & Oystein S. LaBianca

Sedentarization and Nomadization in Transjordan in the Early Islamic Period: The Khirbet Rufeis Cave Complex Excavations and Wusum (ASOR, 1995)

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Sayej, Ghattas J.

The Prehistory of the Hesban Region. The Results of the 1998 Survey: A Preliminary Report (1999)

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Watson, Richard P. & Douglas W. Schnurrenberger

Azraq Basin Prehistory and Paleoenvironment Project (ASOR, 1996) (broken link)

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The Madaba Plains Project (MPP) has been involved in the archaeology of Jordan since 1968. MPP is currently conducting excavations at Tall al-'Umayri, Tall Hisban and Tall Jalul. Previous excavations were conducted at a number of small hinterland sites. In addition to these excavations, archaeological, environmental, and ethnographic surveys were carried out in the hinterland of each excavation site.This page is meant to provide a convenient link to web publications on the archaeology of the Madaba Plain in Jordan and to survey data from the MPP hinterland surveys. The survey data section is new, and currently there is not much here, but there are links to GIS data for the 'Umayri survey and in the months to come, there will be additional data posted here.
Maps of the Hinterland SurveysHisban Hinterland Survey DataJalul Hinterland Survey DataUmayri Hinterland Survey Data