Ancient technology and punctuated change: Detecting the emergence of the Edomite Kingdom in the Southern Levant.

While the punctuated equilibrium model has been employed in paleontological and archaeological research, it has rarely been applied for technological and social evolution in the Holocene. Using metallurgical technologies from the Wadi Arabah (Jordan/Israel) as a case study, we demonstrate a gradual technological development (13th-10th c. BCE) followed by a human agency-triggered punctuated "leap" (late-10th c. BCE) simultaneously across the entire region (an area of ~2000 km2). Here, we present an unparalleled, diachronic archaeometallurgical dataset focusing on elemental analysis of dozens of well-dated slag samples. Based on the results, we suggest punctuated equilibrium provides an innovative theoretical model for exploring ancient technological changes in relation to larger sociopolitical conditions-in the case at hand the emergence of biblical Edom-, exemplifying its potential for more general cross-cultural applications

The United States, PMSCs and the state monopoly on violence: Leading the way towards norm change

This is the author's accepted manuscript. The final published article is available from the link below. Copyright @ 2013 Sage.The proliferation of private military and security companies (PMSCs) in Iraq and Afghanistan has raised many questions regarding the use of armed force by private contractors. This article addresses the question of whether the increased acceptance of PMSCs indicates a transformation of the international norm regarding the state monopoly on the legitimate use of armed force. Drawing on theoretical approaches to the analysis of norm change, the article employs four measures to investigate possible changes in the strength and meaning of this norm: modifications in state behaviour, state responses to norm violation, the promulgation of varying interpretations of the norm in national and international laws and regulations, and changes in norm discourse. Based on an analysis of empirical evidence from the United States of America and its allies, the article concludes that these measures suggest that the USA is leading the way towards a transformation of the international norm of the state monopoly on violence, involving a revised meaning. Although this understanding has not yet been formally implemented in international law, it has allowed a growing number of countries to tolerate, accept or legalize the use of armed force by PMSCs in the international arena.The Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and the Peace Research Institute Frankfurt

Copper, Culture, and Collapse: Modeling the Trajectory of Iron Age Copper Production in Faynan, Jordan

During the Iron Age (ca. 1200-800 BCE), society in the Faynan region of southern Jordan experienced intertwined technological and cultural revolutions, transforming from opportunistic copper production by segmentary tribes of pastoral nomads to industrial-scale metallurgy connected to a regional polity. Previous research in Faynan identified a pinnacle in metallurgy in terms of scale and efficiency during the 10th-9th centuries BCE; yet these advancements were followed by an abrupt industry abandonment by the end of the 9th century BCE with no associated evidence of natural or human intervention such as drought or warfare. Furthermore, while Iron Age Faynan and its copper industry have been the subject of numerous studies and publications, most previous archaeometallurgical research has focused on slag (the waste byproduct of metal production), other components of the metallurgical chaîne opératoire, or only included limited investigations concerning the actual metal. This dissertation aims to fill these scholarly lacunae by investigating the final phases of copper smelting in Iron Age Faynan from the perspective of the metal produced to test if a failure in the metallurgical industry drove a societal collapse. To do so, a combination of theoretical perspectives from anthropology, ecology, and sociology is applied to an original dataset produced using methods from the social, natural, and computer sciences. At the core of this dissertation is the application of the adaptive cycle from Resilience Theory to construct a holistic model of the trajectory of society and copper production across the entire Iron Age sequence with particular emphasis on its “collapse” phase. Using archaeological excavation, scanning electron microscopy and mass spectrometry, this possible “collapse” was investigated with a robust dataset of elementally analyzed copper and iron metal from Khirbat al-Jariya and Khirbat en-Nahas, two of the largest Iron Age copper smelting centers in Faynan. Together, the analytical results and the theoretical approach reveal a “collapse” in the Iron Age social-ecological system of Faynan that was likely driven by socio-economic factors in the greater Eastern Mediterranean rather than internal disruptions to the metallurgical industry

Reconstructing the Metallurgical Narrative of an Iron Age Smelting Site : New Excavations and Archaeometallurgical Investigations at Khirbat al-Jariya, Southern Jordan

Technologies do not exist in a vacuum but rather are embedded within a greater social-historical-economic setting, forming a reciprocal and influential relationship with the society/people that harness technology to produce their material world (Lemonnier 1986, 1992). Renewed archaeological excavations at Khirbat al-Jariya (KAJ), an Iron Age copper smelting center in the Faynan region of Southern Jordan, explored this relationship by supplementing archaeological excavation with X-Ray Fluorescence (XRF) spectroscopy to investigate the copper smelting chaîne opératoire. In order to refine a possible static interpretation of KAJ as a copper smelting site simply exploiting local resources, an investigatory probe was excavated to bedrock in one of the large slag (metallurgical waste) heaps that populate the site's surface to reveal its entire metallurgical history. By collecting slag samples for XRF analysis from secure stratigraphic contexts in conjunction with archaeology's deep-time perspective, it was possible to detect temporal changes in the slag composition, and in turn, technological developments over the site's history. In addition, site wide survey (from balloon-aerial photography) and sampling of metallurgical features provided synchronic details of the copper production system. Finally, additional excavations explored the site's largest structure in an attempt to elucidate the social dynamics of copper smelting. This paper combines the excavation and post-excavation results to recreate the site's metallurgical narrative and to reconstruct the intimate and interactive relationship between the metal workers and their craft during KAJ's occupatio