Project Publications & Bibliography

Project Publications

Chesson, M.S. 2015. Reconceptualizing the Early Bronze Age Southern Levant without Cities: Local Histories and Walled Communities of EBA II-III Society. Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology 28(1): 21-79.

Chesson, M.S. 2019. The Southern Levant During the Early Bronze Age I-III in A. Yasur-Landau, E.H Cline, and Y.M. Rowan (eds.) The Social Archaeology of the Levant. Pp. 163-182. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Chesson, M.S., R.T. Schaub, and W.E. Rast. 2020. Numayra: Excavations at the Early Bronze Age Townsite in Jordan, 1977-1983. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University/Eisenbrauns. (Appendixes E and F) to be hosted by Open Context.

Chesson, M.S. and M.M. Kersel. 2019a. Dead Sea Plain – Numayra. In M. Peilstocker and Y. Schmuhl (eds.) Life at the Dead Sea: Exhibition Catalog. Pp. 222-226. Chemnitz, Germany: State Museum of Chemnitz Press. 

Chesson, M.S. and M.M. Kersel. 2019b. Dead Sea Plain – Bab adh-Dhra`. In M. Peilstocker and Y. Schmuhl (eds.) Life at the Dead Sea: Exhibition Catalog. Pp. 219-221. Chemnitz, Germany: State Museum of Chemnitz Press.

Chesson, M.S., M.M. Kersel, S. Beramun, D. Phillips and T. Kyoo. 2018. Expedition to the Dead Sea Plain. Archaeology in Jordan Newsletter: 2016 and 2017 Seasons, pp. 65-66. ACOR: Amman, Jordan.

Kersel, M.M. 2012a. The Value of a Looted Object – Stakeholder Perceptions in the Antiquities Trade. In J. Carman, C. McDavid, and R. Skeates (eds.) The Oxford Handbook of Public Archaeology, pp. 253-274. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 

Kersel, M.M. 2012b. The Power of the Press: The Effects of Press Releases and Popular Magazines on the Antiquities Trade. In Carol Meyers and Eric Meyers (eds.) Archaeology, Politics and the Media, pp. 72-82. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. 

Kersel, M.M. 2015a. Storage Wars. Solving the Archaeological Curation Crisis? Journal of Eastern Mediterranean Archaeology and Heritage Studies 3(1): 42-55.

Kersel, M.M. 2015b. An Issue of Ethics? Curation and the Obligations of Archaeology. Journal of Eastern Mediterranean Archaeology and Heritage Studies 3(1): 77-80.

Kersel, M.M. 2016. Go, Do Good! Responsibility and the Future of Cultural Heritage in the Eastern Mediterranean in the 21st Century. AIA Heritage, Conservation, and Archaeology Series. 

Kersel, M.M. 2017a. Myths and Facts About Looting in M. Baror (ed.) The Book of Plunder. Pp. 196-198. Tel Aviv: The Center for Contemporary Art. 

Kersel, M.M. 2017b. Remnants of past Lives – storing archaeological stuff in M. Brusius and K. Singh (eds.) Museum Storage and Meaning. Tales from the Crypt. Pp. 273-284. London: Routledge.

Kersel, M.M. 2017c. Object Movement: UNESCO, Language and the Exchange of Middle Eastern Artifacts in J. Anderson and H. Geismar (eds.) The Routledge Companion to Cultural Property. Pp. 277-294. London: Routledge.

Kersel, M.M. 2019. Itinerant Objects. The Legal Lives of Levantine Artifacts in A. Yasur-Landau, E.H Cline, and Y.M. Rowan (eds.) The Social Archaeology of the Levant. Pp. 594-612. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. 

Kersel, M.M. and M.S. Chesson. 2011. Not the Usual Suspects. New Directions in Community Archaeology. The SAA Archaeological Record 11(4): 43-46. 

Kersel, M.M. and M.S. Chesson. 2013a. Tomato Season in the Ghor es-Safi – A Lesson in Community Archaeology. Near Eastern Archaeology 76(3): 158-164.

Kersel, M.M. and M.S. Chesson. 2013b. Looting Matters Early Bronze Age Cemeteries of Jordan’s southeast Dead Sea Plain in the Past and Present. In S. Tarlow and L. Nilsson Stutz (eds.) The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology of Death and Burial, pp. 677-694. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Kersel, M.M., A.C. Hill, and M.S. Chesson. 2014. Follow the Pots: Mapping, Surveying, and Site Monitoring at Fifa. American Journal of Archaeology 118(4): 652-653.

Kersel, M.M. and A.C. Hill. 2016. Landscapes of the Dead: Mapping, Surveying, and Site Monitoring at Fifa. American Journal of Archaeology 120(4): 654.

Kersel, M.M. and A.C. Hill. 2019.  The (W)Hole Picture: Responses to a Looted Landscape. International Journal of Cultural Property 26(3): 305-329.

Kersel, M.M. and A.C. Hill. 2020. Databases, Drones, Diggers, and Diplomacy: The Jordanian Request for a US Cultural Property Bilateral Agreement. Journal of Field Archaeology 45 (sup1): S101-S110. 

Kersel, M.M. and M. Bouchenaki. 2020. Middle East and North Africa in F. Francioni and A.F. Vrdoljak (eds.). The Oxford Handbook of International Cultural Heritage Law. Pp. 931-958. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Kersel, M.M. and F. Greenland. 2017. Objects on the Move. The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. The Oriental Institute News & Notes 233 (Spring): 10-13.

White, C.E., M.S. Chesson, and R.T Schaub. 2014. A Recipe for Disaster: Emerging Urbanism and Unsustainable Plant Economies at Early Bronze Age Ras an-Numayra, Jordan. Antiquity 88: 363-377.

General Bibliography

Albright, A. 1924. The Archaeological Results of an Expedition to Moab and the Dead Sea. Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 14: 2-12.

Al Hamdani, A. 2008   Recovering the Past: Protecting and Recording our Archaeological Heritage in Southern Iraq. Near Eastern Archaeology 71(4): 221-230.

Appadurai, A. 1986. Introduction: Commodities and the Politics of Value. In: Appadurai, A. (ed.) The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 3-63.

Atwood, R. 2004. Stealing History: Tomb Raiders, Smugglers, and the Looting of the Ancient World. New York: St. Martin’s Press.

Bentley, G. R. 1987. Kinship and Social Structure at Early Bronze Age IA Bab edh-Dhra’, Jordan, A Bioarchaeological Analysis of Mortuary and Dental Data. Unpublished PhD thesis, University of Chicago.

Bentley, G. R. 1991. A Bioarchaeological Reconstruction of the Social and Kinship Systems at Early Bronze Age Bab edh-Dhra’, Jordan. In: Gregg, S. (ed) Between Bands and States. Carbondale, IN: Center for Archaeological Investigations, Southern Illinois University: 5- 34.

Bentley, G. R. and Perry, V. J. 2008. Dental Analysis of the Bab edh-Dhra` Human Remains. In: Ortner, D. and B. Fröhlich (eds.) The Early Bronze Age I Tombs and Burials of Bab edh-Dhra`, Jordan, Reports of the Expedition to the Dead Sea Plain, Jordan Volume 3. New York: Altamira Press: 281-296.

Bisheh, G. 2001. One damn illicit excavation after another: the destruction of the archaeological heritage of Jordan. In: Brodie, N., J. Doole and A.C. Renfrew (eds) Trade in illicit antiquities: the destruction of the world’s archaeological heritage. Cambridge: McDonald Institute Monographs: 115-118.

Bowman, B. 2008. Transnational Crimes Against Culture. Looting at Archaeological Sites and the “Grey” Market in Antiquities. Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice 24(3): 225-242.

Bradley, R. 2002. The Past in Prehistoric Societies. London: Routledge.

Brodie, N., and Contreras. D. 2012. The Economics of the Looted Archaeological Landscape of Bab edh Dhra’: A View from Google Earth. In: Paula K. Lazrus and Alex W. Barker (eds) All the King’s Horses. Essays on the Impact of looting and the Illicit Antiquities Trade on our Knowledge of the Past. Washington DC: The SAA Press: 9-24.   

Brodie, N. and Renfrew, C. 2005. Looting and the world’s archaeological heritage: the inadequate response. Annual Review of Anthropology 34: 343–61.

Brumfiel, E. 2003. It’s A Material World: History, Artefacts, and Anthropology. Annual Review of Anthropology 32: 205-223.

Chesson, M. S. 1999. Libraries of the Dead: Early Bronze Age Charnel Houses and Social Identity at Urban Bab edh-Dhra’, Jordan. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 18: 137-164.

Chesson, M. S. 2001a. Social Memory, Identity and Death: An Introduction. In: Chesson, M.S. (ed) Social Memory, Identity and Death: Ethnographic and Archaeological Perspectives on Mortuary Rituals. Archaeological Publications of the American Anthropological Association Publication Series, Vol. 10. Arlington, VA: American Anthropological Association: 1-11.

Chesson, M. S. 2001b. Embodied Memories of Place and People: Death and Society in an Early Urban Community. In: Chesson, M. S. (ed) Social Memory, Identity and Death: Ethnographic and Archaeological Perspectives on Mortuary Rituals. Archaeological Publications of the American Anthropological Association Publication Series, Vol. 10. Arlington, VA: American Anthropological Association: 100-113.

Chesson, M. S. 2007a. House, Town, Field, and Wadi: Economic, Political and Social Landscapes in Early Bronze Age Walled Communities of the Southern Levant. In: Beck, R.A., Jr. (ed) The Durable House: Architecture, Ancestors and Origins. Carbondale, IL: Center for Archaeological Investigations, Southern Illinois University, Occasional Paper No. 35: 317-343.

Chesson, M. S. 2007b. Remembering and Forgetting in Early Bronze Age Mortuary Practices on the southeastern Dead Sea Plain, Jordan. In: Laneri, N. (ed) Performing Death: Social Analyses of Funerary Traditions in the Ancient Mediterranean. Chicago, IL: Oriental Institute, University of Chicago: 109-123.

Chesson, M. S. and R. T. Schaub. 2007. Death and Dying on the Dead Sea Plain: Fifa, al- Khanazir and Bab adh-Dhra` Cemeteries. In. Levy, T. E., P. M. Daviau, R. W. Younker, and M. Shaer (eds) Crossing Jordan: North American Contributions to the Archaeology of Jordan. London: Equinox Press: 253-260.

Contreras, D. 2010. Huaqueros and Remote Sensing Imagery: Assessing Looting Damage in the Virú Valley, Peru. Antiquity 84(324): 544-555.

Contreras, D. and Brodie, N. 2010. The Utility of Publicly-Available Satellite Imagery for Investigating Looting of Archaeological Sites in Jordan. Journal of Field Archaeology 35(1): 101-114.

Emberling, G. 2008. Archaeologists and the Military in Iraq, 2003–2008: Compromise or Contribution? Archaeologies 4(3): 445-459.

Erikson, T. H. 2006. Engaging Anthropology: The Case for a Public Presence. Oxford: Berg Publishers.

Franklin, M. 2001. A Black feminist-inspired archaeology? Journal of Social Archaeology 1(1): 108-25.

Fröhlich, B. and D. J. Ortner. 1982. Excavations of the Early Bronze Age Cemetery at Bab edh-Dhra’ Jordan, 1981: A Preliminary Report. Annual of the Department of Antiquities of Jordan 26:  249-265, pls. LXV-LXXIV.

Gasperetti M.A. and S.G. Sheridan. 2013. ‘Cry havoc’: Interpersonal conflict and accidental injury at Early Bronze Age Bab edh-Dhra’, Jordan. American Anthropologist 115: 388-410. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/aman.12024/pdf

Gilchrist, R and Sloan, B. 2005. Requiem: The Medieval Monastic Cemetery in Britain. London: Museum of London Archaeology Service.

Glueck, N. 1935. Explorations in Eastern Palestine, II. Annual of the American Schools of Oriental Research. Vol. 15. New Haven, CT: American Schools of Oriental Research: 1-288.

Greenberg, R. 2003. Early Bronze Age Megiddo and Bet Shean: Discontinuous Settlement in Sociopolitical Context. Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology 16(1): 17-32.

Greenberg, R. 2009. Towards an Inclusive Archaeology in Jerusalem: The Case of Silwan/The City of David. Public Archaeology 8(1): 35-50.

Gregoricka, L.A., J.M. Ullinger and S.G. Sheridan. 2020. Status, kinship, and place of  burial at Early Bronze Age Bab adh-Dhra’: A biogeochemical comparison of charnel house human remains. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 171(2): 319-335.

Gregoricka L.A. and S.G. Sheridan. 2016. Continuity or conquest? A multi-isotope approach to investigating identity in the transition from the Bronze to the Iron Age in the Southern Levant. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 162:73–89. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com.proxy.library.nd.edu/doi/10.1002/ajpa.23086/full

Hamilakis, Y. 2008. Decolonising Greek archaeology: indigenous archaeologies, modernist archaeology, and the post-colonial critique. In: Damaskos, D. and D. Plantzos (eds) A Singular Antiquity. Athens: The Benaki Museum: 273-284.

Hollowell, J. 2006. Moral Arguments on Subsistence Digging. In: Scarre, C. and G. Scarre (eds) The Ethics of Archaeology. Philosophical Perspectives on Archaeological Practice. Cambridge: University of Cambridge Press: 69- 96.

Joyce, R. A. 2005. Archaeology of the Body. Annual Review of Anthropology 34: 139-158.

Holtorf, C. 2002. Notes on the Life History of a Pot Sherd. Journal of Material Culture 7(1): 49- 71.

Kersel, M. M. 2006. License to Sell: The Legal Trade in Antiquities in Israel. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Cambridge.

Kersel, M. M. 2007. Transcending Borders: Objects on the Move. Archaeologies. Journal of the World Archaeological Congress 3(2): 81-98.

Kersel, M.M. 2008. When Communities Collide: Competing Claims for Archaeological Objects in the Market Place. Archaeologies. Journal of the World Archaeological Congress 7(3): 518-537.

Kopytoff, I. 1986. The Cultural Biography of Things. In: Appadurai, A. (ed) The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 64-91.

Kus, S. 2007. Review of Archaeologies of Materiality, Lynn Meskell ed. 2005. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 17(1): 111-113.

Lafrenz Samuels, K. 2009. Trajectories of Development: International Heritage Management of Archaeology in the Middle East and North Africa. Archaeologies: Journal of the World Archaeological Congress 5(1): 68-91.

Lapp, N. (ed.) 1975. The Tale of the Tell: Archaeological Studies by Paul W. Lapp. Pittsburgh: Pittsburgh Theological Seminary.

Lapp, P. W. 1965. Bab edh-Dhra’ Fall 1965 Excavations. American Schools of Oriental Research Newsletter: 1-2.

Lapp, P. W. 1966. The Cemetery at Bab edh-Dhra`, Jordan. Archaeology 19: 104-11.

Lapp, P. W. 1968a. Bab edh-Dhra’ Tomb A76 and Early Bronze I in Palestine. Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 189: 12-41.

Lapp, P. W. 1968b. Bab edh-Dhra’.  Revue Biblique 75: 86-93, pls. 3-6a.

Little, B., and P. Shackel (eds) 2007. Archaeology as a Tool of Civic Engagement. Gainesville: The University Press of Florida.

Loosley, E. 2005. Archaeology and Cultural Belonging in Contemporary Syria: The Value of Archaeology to Religious Minorities. World Archaeology 37(4): 589-596.

Marshall, Y. 2002. What is Community Archaeology? World Archaeology 34(2): 211-219. 

Matsuda, D. 1998. The Ethics of Archaeology, Subsistence Digging, and Artifact Looting in Latin America: Point Muted Counterpoint. International Journal of Cultural Property 7(1): 87-97.

McCreery, D. 1996. A Salvage Operation at Bab edh-Dhra`. Annual of the Department of Antiquities of Jordan 40: 152-162.

McCreery, D. 2003. The Paleoethnobotany of Bab edh-Dhra’. In: Rast W. E. and R. T. Schaub (eds) Bab edh-Dhra’: Excavations at the Town Site (1975-1981). Part 1: Text.  Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns: 449-463.

Meskell, L. 2005. Introduction: Object Orientations. In: Meskell, L. M. (ed) Archaeologies of Materiality. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing: 1-17.

Miller, D. 1998. Why Some Things Matter. In: Miller, D. (ed.) Material Cultures: Why Some Things Matter. Chicago: University of Chicago Press: 3-24.

Miller, D. (ed.) 2005. Materiality. Durham: Duke University Press.

Ortner, D. and Fröhlich, B. 2008. The Early Bronze Age I Tombs and Burials of Bab edh-Dhra`, Jordan. Reports of the Expedition to the Dead Sea Plain, Jordan Volume 3. New York: AltaMira Press: 281-296.

Parker Pearson, M. 1999. The Archaeology of Death and Burial. College Station: Texas A&M Press.

Philip, G. 2003. The Early Bronze Age of the Southern Levant: A Landscape Approach. Journal of Mediterranean Archaeology 16(1): 103-132.

Philip, G. 2008. The Early Bronze I-III Ages. In: Adams, R. (ed) The Archaeology of Jordan. London and Oakville: Equinox Press: 161-226.

Politis, G. 1994. Biblical Zoar: the looting of an ancient site, Minerva 5(6): 12-15.

Politis, G. 2002. Dealing with the Dealers and Tomb Robbers: The realities of the archaeology of the Ghor es-Safi in Jordan. In: Brodie, N., and K. Walker Tubb (eds) Illicit Antiquities: The Theft of Culture and the Extinction of Archaeology. London: Routledge: 257-267.

Porter, B. and Salazar, N. 2005. Heritage Tourism, Conflict, and the Public Interest: An Introduction. International Journal of Heritage Studies 11(5): 361-370.

Pyburn. K.A. 2008. Public Archaeology, Indiana Jones, and Honesty. Archaeologies: Journal of the World Archaeological Congress 4(2): 201-207.

Rast, W. E. 1987. Bab Edh-Dhraʿ and the Origin of the Sodom Saga. In: Perdue, L G., L. E. Toombs, and G. L. Johnson (eds) Archaeology and Biblical Interpretation: Essays in Memory of D. Glenn Rose. Atlanta, Ga.: Knox: 185-201.

Rast, W. E. and Schaub, R. T. 1974. Survey of the Southeastern Plain of the Dead Sea, 1973. Annual of the Department of Antiquities, Jordan 19: 5-53.

Rast, W. E, and Schaub, R. T. 2003. Bab edh-Dhra’:  Excavations at the Town Site (1975-1981). Winona Lake, IN:  Eisenbrauns.

Roosevelt, C. H. and Luke, C. 2006. Looting Lydia: The Destruction of an Archaeological Landscape in Western Turkey. In: Brodie, N., M. M. Kersel, C. Luke and K. Walker Tubb (eds) Archaeology, Cultural Heritage, and the Antiquities Trade. Gainesville: University Press of Florida: 173-187.

Rose, J. and Burke, D. 2004. Money from Buried Treasure. Culture Without Context. 14: 4-8.

Schaub, R. T. and Chesson, M. S. 2007. Life in the earliest walled towns on the Dead Sea Plain: Numayra and Bab edh-Dhra`. In: Levy, T. E., P. M. Daviau, R. W. Younker, and M. Shaer (eds) Crossing Jordan: North American Contributions to the Archaeology of Jordan. London: Equinox Press: 246-252.

Schaub, R.T. and W.A. Rast 1989. Bab edh-Dhra’: Excavations in the Cemetery Directed by Paul W. Lapp (1965-1967). Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns.

Sheridan, S.G., Ullinger, J., Gregoricka, L., & Chesson, M.S. 2014. Bioarchaeological reconstruction of group identity at Early Bronze Age Bab edh-Dhra’, Jordan. In: B. Porter & A. Boutin (eds) Remembering the Dead in the Ancient Near East: Recent Contributions from Bioarchaeology and Mortuary Archaeology. Boulder: University of Colorado Press: 133-184.

Sneddon, A. C. 2002. The Cemeteries at Marki: Using a Looted Landscape to Investigate Prehistoric Bronze Age Cyprus. Oxford: Archaeopress.

Stahl, A. B. 2010. Material Histories. In: Hicks, D., and M. C. Beaudry (eds.) The Oxford Handbook of Material Culture Studies. Oxford: Oxford University Press: 150-172.

Steele, C. 2005. Who Has Not Eaten Cherries with the Devil? Archaeology Under Challenge. In: Pollock, S., and R. Bernbeck (eds.) Archaeologies of the Middle East: Critical Perspectives. London: Blackwell: 45-65.

Stone, E. 2008. Patterns of Looting in Southern Iraq. Antiquity 82 (315): 125-138.

Webb J. and Frankel, D. 2009. Exploiting a damaged and diminishing resource: survey, sampling, and society at a Bronze Age cemetery complex in Cyprus. Antiquity 83 (319): 54-68.

Wilkie, L. 2001. Communicative Bridges Linking Actors Through Time. Journal of Social Archaeology 1(2): 225-243.