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‘Ain Difla Rockshelter

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Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology

Introduction

‘Ain Difla (WHS 634) was discovered by Burton MacDonald’s Wadi Hasa Survey in 1982 and was partially excavated by Geoffrey Clark in 1984, 1992, and 1993; by Clark and Gary Rollefson in 1986; and by Zeljko Rezek in 2010 and 2011 (Fig. 1). Located at c. 780 m above sea level in the Wadi Ali, a southern tributary of the Wadi Hasa in west-central Jordan, the site consists of a small wedge of sediment preserved under the overhang of a large rockshelter, the contents of which have mostly been emptied by fluctuations in the course of the wadi, now located some 12 m below it. Intact deposits cover about 35 m2 and extend to a depth of c. 6–7 m in the talus slope in front of the rockshelter (Fig. 2). Preservation within the rockshelter is a function of its location, nestled within a recessed cavity that protected it from lateral erosion and slope retreat.

‘Ain Difla Rockshelter, Fig. 1
figure 131 figure 131

A plan view of the ‘Ain Difla rockshelter (WHS 634): units excavated during the 1984, 1986, and...

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Correspondence to Geoffrey A. Clark .

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Clark, G.A., Schuldenrein, J. (2014). ‘Ain Difla Rockshelter. In: Smith, C. (eds) Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-0465-2_2307

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