Lecture: Who Were the People in the Neolithic Black Desert? By Dr. Gary Rollefson

About the lecture Before 7,000 BC, the people of the Black Desert lived as hunters and gatherers, following herds of gazelle and moving from camp to camp on a frequent basis. By 6,600 BC, it is clear that the population of the area grew suddenly to perhaps ten to twenty times what it was a few hundred years earlier, and the people lived for the first time in sturdy, permanent houses made of stone, staying in them for months at a time. The lecture will look at what caused the change in the populations living in the Black Desert. About the lecturer Dr. Gary Rollefson has received numerous NEH and CAORC fellowships over his long academic career that began in Jordan with ACOR almost 40 years ago. He is currently an emeritus professor of Anthropology at Whitman College. He received his Ph.D. (1978) as well as his M.A. (1972) in Anthropology from the University of Arizona, Tucson and he received his B.A. (1965) in Anthropology from the University of California, Berkley. He has held many teaching and lecturing positions and boasts a long list of publications and fieldwork related to the archaeology of Jordan. To learn more about Dr. Gary Rollefson you can listen to a 2016 lecture by Gary Rollefson about his research in the Black Desert and read Rollefson’s 2016 blogpost about his research or visit his faculty page at Whitman College.