Hanna Erftenbeck

Biography

I am an anthropological archaeologist who is interested in early urbanism, daily life, and foodways. In my dissertation research I investigate how people’s food-related practices during the Early Bronze Age in the southern Levant (modern-day Israel, Jordan, Palestine, southern Lebanon, and southern Syria) contributed to the creation and later dismantling of the earliest proto- and early urban communities in the region. To answer these questions, I utilize the pottery and groundstone tools collection from Numayra, Jordan.

Before coming to Notre Dame, I studied Archaeology of West Asia at Freie Universität Berlin (BA ’14, MA ’18) and Durham University (2014–2015). For my M.A. thesis, I analyzed the chipped stone tools from Abu Snesleh in Jordan to understand their production and use during the Chalcolithic and Middle Bronze Age. Over the last decade I have worked on projects in Germany, Greece, Turkey, Jordan, Israel, and the United States.