Ian W. N. Jones is a Ph.D. candidate in the Anthropology program at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) and an ACOR-CAORC Fellow in fall 2017. His research project is titled “Economy, Society, and Small-Scale Industry: Social Approaches to Middle Islamic Copper Production in Southern Jordan.”
During his fellowship at ACOR, Ian is focused on completing his dissertation, an archaeological investigation of the Middle Islamic period copper industry in Faynan, southern Jordan, and its role in the political economy of Jordan during the Ayyubid period (late 12th to mid 13th century). He will be analyzing small finds from excavations in Faynan and consulting the archaeology and history collections in the ACOR library, as well as finalizing other publications.
Ian is interested in the lives of local people in southern and central Jordan during the politically dynamic 12th and 13th centuries, a time when control over much of modern Jordan was shifting from the Fatimid to Crusader to Ayyubid and finally to Mamluk rule. He is a member of the Balu‘a Regional Archaeology Project (BRAP), an international research collaboration investigating Khirbat al-Balu‘a, a large, multi-period site on the northern Karak Plateau. In the past he has supervised excavations at Middle Islamic sites in the Faynan region through the UC San Diego Edom Lowlands Regional Archaeology project.
Ian Jones earned a dual B.A. in Anthropology and English from the University of Massachusetts in 2007, and an M.A. in Anthropology from the University of California, San Diego in 2010. To learn more see Ian’s web site and his CV.
