Abstract
In recent years, debates surrounding the origins of modern humans have increasingly looked towards the Levant as “one of the most important corridors for the dispersal of humans [from Africa] into Eurasia” (Akazawa et al. 2002: 2). Archaeological evidence unearthed in the Levant, most famously in the Jordan Valley, suggests a human occupation dating back approximately one and a half million years (Belmaker et al. 2002). Archaeological surveys and excavations carried out in Jordan during the past century, yielded thousands of archaeological sites, such as early settlements, Biblical sites, Graeco-Roman cities, and Crusader and Muslim castles. In fact, an examination of aerial photographs taken in 1953 revealed approximately 25,000 archaeological sites in the western half of Jordan (Kennedy and Bewley 1998). These sites provide valuable insights into the beliefs, values, and ways of living of past communities residing in the geographical area of Jordan.
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Notes
- 1.
Until the beginning of the 1990s, the Jordanian educational ladder at school level was divided into three stages, primary (Years 1–6, Ages 6–11), preparatory (Years 7–9, Ages 12–14), and secondary (Years 10–12, Ages 15–18). At present, while maintaining the same content and progression in the curriculum, the three stages are combined into two, compulsory education (Years 1–10) and high school (Years 11 and 12) (DH, personal communication 2005). The teaching of the past in the first 5 years at school (primary level) is covered by the citizenship curriculum.
- 2.
In the new revised curriculum, there are 25 pages about tourism in an 82 page-textbook at year four (Al Shdeifat et al. 2006) depicting a repeated pattern of pictures of archaeological sites with brief text.
- 3.
The number of teachers is higher than the number of schools because the author took the opportunity to interview more than one teacher, if available, in some schools to get better insight into the issues under investigation. Each school was considered one voice because teachers answered collectively and their responses could not be counted.
- 4.
The head of the Archaeology Department at the University of Jordan began collaborating in 2006 with the head of the Humanities Department at the Ministry’s Curriculum Directorate and has been involved in authoring the History of Ancient Civilization textbook at level seven.
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Acknowledgments
This research was possible due to the generous contribution of school teachers, museum curators, and decision-makers in the heritage and education sectors in Jordan. I am grateful to Aron Mazel and Peter Stone for their helpful suggestions on earlier drafts of this paper. I would like to thank my husband, Keith Barrow, for his help in proof-reading and additional insights to the paper’s contents. I am also grateful to Akira Matsuda and Katsuyuki Okamura for being supportive and patient editors. I alone am responsible for the ideas expressed in this paper.
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Badran, A. (2011). The Excluded Past in Jordanian Formal Primary Education: The Introduction of Archaeology. In: Okamura, K., Matsuda, A. (eds) New Perspectives in Global Public Archaeology. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-0341-8_15
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