Edward Banning
Edward Banning, Ph.D. (University of Toronto, 1985)
Professor, Undergraduate Co-ordinator, St. George Campus
(416) 978-2315
Office: AP 518B
Lab: AP 518
Field: Archaeology, Middle Eastern prehistory, Neolithic to Early Bronze, archaeological method and theory, archaeological survey; Jordan, Levant
Website: http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~banning/
Research
Ted Banning's research on the beginnings of village life and political-economic inequality in southwest Asia concentrates on the southern Levant. He has been on the staff of excavations at Neolithic 'Ain Ghazal in Jordan, and directs the Wadi Ziqlab Project in northern Jordan, which has involved both survey and excavation at several Epipalaeolithic, Neolithic, Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age sites.
His interests include ways that the spatial organization of the built environment, in conjunction with the spatial distributions of other aspects of material culture, can inform us about changes in prehistoric and early historic social systems. One project along these lines involves the analysis of the built environment of the Samarran site of Tell as-Sawwan, Iraq. Other interests involve the evolution of the agricultural economy from the Neolithic onward, the early development of specialized pastoral economy, and Neolithic pottery and chronology.
More generally, he is interested in method and theory, including measurement theory, sampling, ethnoarchaeology, and archaeological survey. Much of his recent work involves theoretical aspects of survey detection functions and evaluation of survey results.
Recent Publications
2011 So Fair a House: Göbekli Tepe and the Identification of Temples in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic of the Near East. Current Anthropology 52(5):619-660.
2010 Houses, households, and changing society in the Late Neolithic and Chalcolithic of the southern Levant. Paléorient36(1): 45-83.
2010 Networking in the Neolithic: Wadi Ziqlab in its regional context. Adumatu 22: (with K. Gibbs).
2009 Subsistence practices and pottery use in Neolithic Jordan: molecular and isotopic evidence. Journal of Archaeological Science 36: 937-946 (M. Gregg, E. B. Banning, K.Gibbs, and G. F. Slater).
2009 Early Bronze I occupation at al-Basatîn, in Wadi Ziqlab, northern Jordan. Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 355: 31-50 (K. Gibbs, S. Kadowaki, A. Allentuck, and E. B. Banning).
2009 Mid-Holocene occupations at al-Basatîn in Wadi Ziqlab, northern Jordan. Antiquity 83(322): project gallery (K. Gibbs, S. Kadowaki, and E. B. Banning).
2008 Multiple-spouted jars of the Early Bronze I in northern Jordan. Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 349: 1-12 (E. B. Banning, J. Haroun, and S. Klassen).
2008 Late Neolithic settlement in Wadi Ziqlab, Jordan: al-Basatîn. Paléorient 34(1): (S. Kadowaki, K. Gibbs, A. Allentuck, and E. B. Banning).
2007 Introduction: Time and Tradition, problems of chronology in the 6th-4th millennia in the Levant and Greater Mesopotamia. Paléorient 34(1): 11-14.
2007 Wadi Rabah and related assemblages in the southern Levant: Interpreting the radiocarbon evidence. Paléorient 33(1): 77-101.
2006 Detection functions for archaeological survey. American Antiquity 71(4): 723-742 (with Alicia Hawkins and S. T. Stewart).
2006 The Late Neolithic at al-Basatîn in Wadi Ziqlab, northern Jordan. Antiquity 80(310) (with K. Gibbs and S. Kadowaki).
2006 Domesticating Space: Construction, Community, and Cosmology in the Late Prehistoric Near East. ex oriente, Berlin (co-editor, with Michael Chazan).
