Summary The Early Bronze Age site of Jebel al-Mutawwaq, located on a hill overlooking the Zarqa River in Jordan, was a thriving centre of population from the second half of the fourth millennium into the third millennium BCE. During this time, the settlement developed both in population and social complexity, undergoing the beginnings of an urbanization process that fundamentally changed the relationship between this community of the Transjordanian Highlands with the surrounding landscape, until it was completely abandoned around 2900 BCE. This volume offers a new assessment of the site by combining data from the first surveys of the site, under a Spanish team led by J. A. Fernandez-Tresguerres, with the new results from six seasons of excavations led by teams from Perugia in Italy, and San Esteban in Spain. In doing so, this work sheds new light on this walled settlement and its huge megalithic necropolises, and offers a fresh understanding of the site. TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Illustrations An Introduction to the Volume ANDREA POLCARO & JUAN RAMON MU IZ 1. Jebel al-Mutawwaq: History of Investigations JUAN RAMON MU IZ 2. The Historical Framework: EB I in Jordan ANDREA POLCARO 3. The Site of Jebel al-Mutawwaq: Architecture, Settlement Planning, and Space Organization ANDREA POLCARO & JUAN RAMON MU IZ 4. The Pottery: Function and Typologies ELOISA CASADEI & JOAQUIM DEL RIO 5. The Lithics: Function and Typologies ALESSANDRA CASELLI 6. Biomolecular Archaeology: Preliminary DNA Analysis of Skeletal Remains from Jebel al-Mutawwaq CHIARA PANICUCCI, SARA SILVESTRINI, GIORGIO GRUPPIONI, DONATA LUISELLI, ELISABETTA CILLI & PATRIZIA SERVENTI 7. The Development of Olive Growing at the Jebel al-Mutawwaq Site: Preliminary Data ALESSIA D'AURIA & GAETANO DI PASQUALE 8. Conclusions: The Importance of the Jebel al-Mutawwaq Settlement at the Beginning of the First Urbanization in the Southern Levant ANDREA POLCARO Works Cited