Jabal Wisad East Fallout Kites (Eastern Piedmont Debris Fan)
East Wisad Fallout Kites · Eastern Pediment Trap Field
Pre-Pottery Neolithic B Late to Pottery Neolithic (7000–6000 BCE)·Wisad east fan pastoral hunters·🇯🇴 Mafraq Governorate, Harrat al-Sham, Jabal Wisad Eastern Piedmont Fallout Fan (basalt-tephra transition), Jordan
About
About Jabal Wisad East Fallout Kites (Eastern Piedmont Debris Fan)
Eastern fallout tephra fan (685 m) 4 km east of Jabal Wisad plateau, where basalt table sheds to soft tephra silt, Harrat edge. 8 m (vs slab-deep). Tephra substrate requires wall footing trench 15 cm to anchor against silt subsidence — deeper than hamada kites. Two kites (WE-02, WE-07) have associated ‘desert wheel’ (circular wheel-like structure 22 m diam with spokes) annexed to kite tail as driver blind. Silt allows preservation of hoof prints fossilized in wall base mortar (gazelle, Equus).
OSL wall silt 7900±600 BP contemporaneous with plateau. Function likely intercepts gazelle migrating eastward off table toward Azraq basin seasonal lakes. Wind-blown tephra burial threatens walls.
Why it mattersOnly tephra-silt kites with trench footing and desert-wheel blinds + fossilized hoof prints — lowland vs plateau typology contrast.
Open questions
Mysteries & theories
Mysteries
- 01Why oval vs star pen on tephra — silt subsidence vs cultural preference
Theories
- 01Eastward drift interception after plateau drive off rim
Theories are interpretations, not findings. The seal above tells you how much scholarly weight the place carries.
History
How it came to be
- Built
- c.7000 – 6000 BCE (PPNB–PN, OSL 7900 BP)
- Period
- Pre-Pottery Neolithic B Late to Pottery Neolithic (7000–6000 BCE)
- Culture
- Wisad east fan pastoral hunters
- Builders
- Wisad eastern pediment trap builders
- Purpose
- Fallout-silt low kites with desert-wheel blinds intercepting eastward gazelle drift off table to Azraq basin
- Abandoned
- c.5500 BCE
- Rediscovered
- 2016 SEBAP east fan survey; 2020 tephra OSL dating
- Excavation
- Partially excavated
2016
East fan 9 kites recorded
2020
OSL 7900±600 BP wall silt
2021
Hoof prints identified in mortar
On the ground
Structures & features
32.4400° N · 37.4800° E · 685 m · 2 mapped features
Oval Pen WE-02 (35 m) with Wheel
desert kite35 m oval pen with annexed 22 m desert wheel blind and Y-branch walls
32.4410° N · 37.4790° EHoof-Print Mortar Segment
earthworkWall base mortar preserving gazelle hoof prints in tephra silt
32.4390° N · 37.4810° E