Abstract Remnant lake and stream terraces of the Wadi el Hasa (west‐central Jordan) are associated with in situ prehistoric sites spanning > 100,000 years. Eighteen radiocarbon dates from cultural and geological deposits on the terraces facilitate the first comprehensive prehistoric landscape chronology for the southern Levant east of the Jordan Rift. In the eastern Hasa basin, the uppermost of three cut and fill surfaces (>20 m) is linked to massive fossil spring deposits and an early Middle Paleolithic occupation (100,000–70,000 B. P.), suggestive of considerably wetter climates. A later Middle Paleolithic occupation may be synchronous with the emergence of Pleistocene Lake Hasa (ca. 70,000 B. P.). Peak lake levels were attained 40,000 years ago. Dates proliferate after 25,000 B. P. and register recession of Lake Hasa (ca. 20,000 B. P.), an intervening erosional phase, and the initiation of complex humid‐desiccation cycles for the terminal Pleistocene—Holocene (17,000–9,000 B. P.). The contemporary Wadi el Hasa channel began aggrading its floodplain after 8000 B. P. and was incised to its present depths 1000–500 years ago. The prehistoric landscape history of the Hasa drainage is broadly synchronous with sequences in the Rift Valley and Negev desert and offers baseline chronologies for the Late Quaternary of eastern Jordan and the Arabian peninsula. © 1994 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
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