The Phenomenon of the “Disappearing” Villages of Late Medieval Jordan, as Reflected in Archaeological and Economic Sources

Abstract

The settlement decline of the late Mamluk period is one of the most important phenomena in the cultural history of southern Bilād al-Šām and particularly for the Transjordan, as there is a growing belief that the settlement and ecological patterns that developed then laid the foundations for many aspects of modern Jordanian society. It is an issue, moreover, that has for the last twenty years dominated debates on the archaeology of late medieval Jordan. While settlement fluctuations in this period transformed Jordan in important ways, there has been little systematic study of the issue in order to determine to what degree population levels dropped from the 14th century, how many settlements “disappeared”, and what was the long-term legacy of this phenomenon.This essay revisits the problem of settlement decline through a reanalysis of archaeological data within the larger context of the challenges facing the Mamluk state in the post-plague era. Detailed study of documentary sources for the period suggests that restructuring of the empire’s economy, along with changes in local land tenure, contributed to the dispersal of populations from settlement centers.