Dharih (Wadi al-Hasa, Jordan) in the Early Bronze Age: The Evidence from the French-Jordanian Excavations

Dharih, in the modern Tafilah region of southern Jordan, is best known as a signature site for the Nabatean and Roman periods, but the French-Jordanian team that carried out archaeological research there from the 1980s until the 2000s also uncovered evidence of human occupation through the 4th and 3rd millennia b.c.e., in the Early Bronze Age. In Transjordan, this time relates to the development and crisis of early urbanism and to the consequent regional reorganization in the non-urban period. This paper presents the Early Bronze Age evidence uncovered at Dharih, provides a chronological assessment of the finds, and analyzes the 4th and 3rd millennium b.c.e. occupation at the site within a regional context. It discusses how these previously unpublished records for the Early Bronze I–IV (ca. 3800/3700–1950/1920 b.c.e.) may help place the site and its surrounding area into regional patterns of material culture and current narratives for those periods.