Studies of the rural landscapes around the Nabataean/Roman city of Petra in Jordan have tended to assume a developmental trajectory based on that of the urban centre. Recent archaeological investigations at the site of Umm Huwaiwitat, however, shed light on the longer-term histories of human occupation and land use in the region north of Petra. Excavation has revealed Late Neolithic deposits formed by the burning of animal dung and the disposal of ash. These deposits underlie walls, today serving as agricultural terraces, which date to at least the Early Bronze Age. Umm Huwaiwitat therefore provides a microcosm of the long-lived and constantly reworked agricultural landscapes of the Middle East.

A multidisciplinary project challenges traditional approaches to the rural landscape of Petra in order to understand its agricultural systems and the quantitative and qualitative aspects of a lived landscape.

When we talk about Astronomy, we normally do not take into account that we are using a cultural specific way of understanding the sky. Astronomers, either professional, amateur or just lovers of the sky nowadays tend to approach the sky from the point of view of modern science. There, we approach the sky as something that needs to be explored, understood and explained.

However, this vision was not always like that, or even in other cultures is/was completely different. For centuries, the human being has comprehended the sky, its changes and constancies, as part of their world, as part of the environment, as part of their everyday life.

In this paper, I review a few of these different ways of approaching the sky in several cultures, from the Near East to Rome or the Andes and how we can use them today for education, outreach and heritage management.

During its development years, geophysical survey has served field archaeology by defining possible sites underground, prior to excavation or preservation. Now we can see the art taking off as a research method in its own right. After summarising some recent research applications of magnetic mapping, the author gives us three case studies from USA and Jordan, where ground-penetrating radar (GPR) has produced new interpretations of prehistory and history. Since GPR can map in horizontal slices without damage, it opens up important heritage preservation options. In one case, excavation was discouraged on ethical grounds, in another it was inhibited by the presence of later monuments and in a third, an early agricultural site, the GPR actually saw more than the excavators. This presages a research tool of particular power.