Methodology:

The methodology for the Tall Jalul excavation is described on page 2 of the Madaba Plains Project excavation manual, wirtten by Dr. Larry Herr (1998 revised ed.).

The method of excavation used by the Madaba Plains Project owes much to Dame Kathleen Kenyon's strict attention to the stratigraphy of the earth layers (the relationship of earth layers to other features, like walls), which she imported to the Near East from England where Sir Mortimer Wheeler had developed it (it is sometimes called the "Wheeler-Kenyon Method"). At Jericho, Lawrence Toombs and Joseph Callaway learned the method and brought it to G. E. Wright's excavation at Balata (Shechem) (see L. Toombs' appendix in G. E. Wright, Shechem [NY: McGraw-Hill, 1964]). Wright combined Kenyon's stratigraphic method with W. F. Albright's emphasis on pottery typology as a guide to stratigraphic interpretation and began to use specialists as an integral part of the excavation and interpretive process. Our own innovations are merely amplifications of those roots. We have also been affected by interpretive approaches and research design methods from new world archaeology.