Lecture Summaries: 11 October, 2007

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Water, Life and Civilization

by
Steven Mithen FBA
Professor of Early Prehistory
Head of School of Human and Environmental Sciences

The need for water provides a unifying theme throughout the whole of human history. Water is not only needed to sustain life, but also for use as a commodity, as a source of power and as a potent symbol. This provides the theme for an inter-disciplinary project at the University of Reading combining the expertise of archaeologists, geographers, soil scientists and meteorologists to explore the changes in the hydrological climate and its impact on human communities in the Middle East from 21,000 years ago to 200 years into the future (see www.waterlifecivilisation.org ). This lecture will review the research programme as a whole, describing on-going climate and hydrological models, experimental crop growing and social studies in the city of Amman.  It will then focus on archaeological studies relating to prehistoric settlement in the Jordan Valley.