Edward Banning

Biography

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.

Research Interest

Archaeology, Middle Eastern prehistory, Neolithic to Early Bronze, archaeological method and theory, archaeological survey