Gourguen Davtian

Preparing an archaeological field survey: Remote sensing interpretation for herding structures in the Southern Levant

Development of archaeological “virtual surveys” using online satellite imagery allows the identification of an increasing number and diversity of data. Coherent procedures are now essential in the preparation of any field study: estimating archaeological potential, gathering and mapping environmental features, and building hypotheses about settlement location and settlement patterns. In this article, we propose methods aimed at developing tools to describe and measure the different elements of pastoral archaeological structures in southern Syria, and quantifying the importance of these structures in the landscape and natural environment. Our thematic case study is the pastoral settlement pattern in the Leja, a basaltic region in southern Syria.

Small-scale water systems in the Fertile Crescent. The role of cisterns-based water systems in an arid zone between rain-fed agriculture and stockbreeding during Roman times

Mapping palaeoenvironmental data and manmade landscape developments are some of the best ways to estimate, measure and illustrate human ecological niche building. Describing and quantifying the case study of a cisterns system in Southern Syria during Roman times, we show how the development of a simple technique in the Leja arid area changes the living conditions and probably the pastoralist’s mobility for nearly a millennium and a half.