This month’s Nature Talks, to be held on Tuesday, October 15, is by Dr Derek Barrett, an anaesthetist at the Whanganui Hospital and a notable photographer in the Whanganui Camera Club.
In this richly illustrated presentation, he will talk about his visit to Jordan in 2023, specifically to historic sites around Amman and the ancient cities of Petra and Jerash. He will be focusing on the archaeology of these sites and what they reveal about the development and persistence of an ancient civilisation in this arid environment.
Long before the Industrial Revolution allowed people to shape their world using machinery powered by the combustion engine, the people of the Levant applied ancient engineering skills and an understanding of the natural world to mould their environment.
Neolithic and Chalcolithic people (10,000–3500 years BCE) built sophisticated water management systems that used diversion dams to harvest and channel seasonal rainwater through a network of conduits and tunnels into cisterns from which they watered their crops and livestock.
It also allowed extensive settlement of an essentially arid region. As the population and production of goods grew, the region became a hub for long-distance trade in grains, animal and plant products and, later, copper and iron goods.