Joint Expedition to Tell Umm el-Marra, Syria

(Jabbul plain, looking south towards Jabbul salt lake)
Located east of Aleppo, a dominant urban center of northern Syria since Bronze Age times, the Jabbul plain controls an important east-west route linking Aleppo and the Mediterranean with Mesopotamia. Most of the plain receives enough precipitation for dry farming, but annual rainfall decreases from west to east, resulting in a dry, agriculturally marginal region in the eastern fringes of the Jabbul. Historically, this eastern zone is utilized by nomadic pastoralists tending herds of sheep and goat.
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