Thomas E Levy

University of California, San Diego, Anthropology, Faculty Member

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Thomas Evan Levy is Distinguished Professor of the Graduate Division and inaugural holder of the Norma Kershaw Chair in the Archaeology of Ancient Israel and Neighboring Lands at the University of California, San Diego. A fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Levy is a Levantine field archaeologist with interests in the role of technology, especially early mining and metallurgy, on social evolution from the beginnings of sedentism and the domestication of plants and animals in the Neolithic period to medieval Islamic times. Since 2016, Tom's research has focused on marine archaeology off the Carmel coast in Israel with the University of Haifa and the Aegean with the University of Patras in Greece. Tom has led numerous archaeological expeditions in the deserts of Jordan and Israel. He has also co-directed field projects in Cameroon, Cyprus, Morocco and Saudi Arabia. Levy co-directs the Center for Cyber-archaeology and Sustainability at the Qualcomm Institute - California Institute of Telecommunications and Information Technology (Calit2) and Levantine Archaeology Laboratory on the main campus. He is a member of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts and an adjunct professor at the University of Cyprus. Tom received an honorary doctorate from Charles University in the Czech Republic.
Supervisors: PhD supervisor - Prof. Robin Dennell, University of Sheffield, UK

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The Boomer Archaeologist - A Graphic Memoir of Tribes, Identity and the Holy Land (Illustrated by Lily Almeida). Equinox Publishing, Sheffield UK.

The Boomer Archaeologist - A Graphic Memoir of Tribes, Identity and the Holy Land, 2025

ARCHAEOLOGY IS SCIENCE AND ADVENTURE ROLLED INTO ONE. THE BOOMER ARCHAEOLOGIST: A GRAPHIC MEMOIR ... more ARCHAEOLOGY IS SCIENCE AND ADVENTURE ROLLED INTO ONE. THE BOOMER ARCHAEOLOGIST: A GRAPHIC MEMOIR OF TRIBES, IDENTITY, AND THE HOLY LAND TRACES THE 20th-CENTURY EVOLUTION OF A FIELD.
KNOWn TO THE PUBLIC MOSTLY THROUGH INDIANA JONES, INTO A 21st-CENTURY STATE-OF-THE-ART TRANSDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH ENDEAVOR WITH GLOBAL IMPLICATIONS. A COMING-OF-AGE STORY BEGINNING IN THE WILD 1960S, THE GRAPHIC MEMOIR EMBODIES THE "AMERICAN DREAM," WHERE CITIZENS CAN RISE TO THE PINNACLE OF THEIR CHOSEN PROFESSIONS. THE BOOMER ARCHAEOLOGIST REFLECTS ON A CAREER DEDICATED TO UNDERSTANDING THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIAL INEQUALITY AND THE IMPORTANCE OF CULTURAL IDENTITY, BOTH IN THE PAST AND THE PRESENT. THE GRAPHIC MEMOIR HIGHLIGHTS HOW RISK-TAKING AND "PUSHING THE ENVELOPE" CAN PROMOTE NEW DIRECTIONS In ACADEMIC WORK, EVEN IN THE CONTEXT OF CHANGING AND DISAPPOINTING VALUES IN ELITE US RESEARCH UNIVERSITIES OVER THE PAST 30 YEARS.

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Digital Deforestation: DTM Generation with Agisoft Photoscan

The 82nd Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, 2018

Digital archaeology field recording in the 4th dimension: ArchField C++ a 4D GIS for digital field work

2015 Digital Heritage, Sep 1, 2015

With the rapid adoption of laser scanning and photogrammetry among the archaeological community t... more With the rapid adoption of laser scanning and photogrammetry among the archaeological community the creation of point cloud `data scaffolds' and digital documentation of archaeological sites is now becoming common. In field excavations, however, the continual exposure of archaeological layers requires a digital toolset in which to record, categorize and spatially locate artifacts, installations, and loci within a site's daily 3D or aerial scan. We present ArchField C++, the latest version of our digital field recording software that enables real-time digital GIS 3D Top Plan production within a rendering engine designed for visualizing massive 3D datasets. ArchField directly connects to Total Stations and our RTK GPS units to record sub-centimeter measurements for artifacts, scanning markers, loci boundaries, and camera positions. The processing pipeline enables the generation of publishable orthographic and perspective maps from the first day of excavation to the last. As a backend it uses a PostGIS database and the ability to export and import various vector, raster, DEM and 3D datasets that can be hosted by on-line geo-referenced databases. We present the application of ArchField C++ to our 2014 field excavations of the early Iron Age site of Khirbat al-Jariyah located in Southern Jordan.

The Petrography of Iron Age Edom

The Iron Age Egyptian Amulet Assemblage

The assemblage of glyptic objects, which include scarabs and other amulet types, sheds light on t... more The assemblage of glyptic objects, which include scarabs and other amulet types, sheds light on the vivid interaction between the people living in Iron Age Edom and Egypt during the twenty-first and the beginning of the twenty-second Egyptian dynasty (ca. 1070-850 BCE). Given the peripheral location of the investigated area, far off from regular transport axes, and the industrial nature of the investigated copper sites, the number of Egyptian stamp seals and amulets is astonishing, especially during a period when contacts with Egypt were normally observed on the Mediterranean coast and along transregional trade routes. However, while some of the Egyptian goods unearthed in tombs may be the result of the nomadizing Shasu tribes' social interaction with neighboring groups, the presence of these items within Edomite copper production centers could reflect commercial and/or cultural interconnections of the local population with the Egyptian realm at the close of the second and at the beginning of the first millennium BCE. This chapter summarizes the entire corpus (n = 16) of Egyptian amulets found in the surveys and excavations of the Edom Lowlands Regional Archaeology Project in Jordan's Faynan district. The majority (n = 10) come from the stratified excavations at the Khirbat en-Nahas copper production center located on the Wadi Ghuwayba. Three items are from an Iron Age tomb from Wadi Fidan 4, two from the large Iron Age cemetery at Wadi Fidan 40, and one found on the surface of Khirbat Hamra Ifdan, also on the Wadi Fidan. This assemblage contributes to understanding the nature of Egyptian interaction with this important southern Levantine copper production zone.

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Remarks and Caution on Finds of Kastrouli Mycenaean Settlement (Loofah, Charcoal, Bone, Wall Burnt Clay Coating, Ceramic)

Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research), Jan 10, 2023

Τhe excavated materials of the Late Helladic III settlement Kastrouli in Phokis, Greece has produ... more Τhe excavated materials of the Late Helladic III settlement Kastrouli in Phokis, Greece has produced significant diverse information regarding chronology, human mobility, diet, characterization and provenance. The comingled burial of Tomb A and the finds from at least two buildings also contained some strange materials which properly analyzed offer a plea for caution. Moreover, they offer an opportunity to examine technological aspects, identification of species, dating and firing conditions. The few materials investigated here by Optical microscopy (OM), SEM-EDS, FTIR and 14 C include some spongy-like fibers, an incised ceramic sherd, a burnt bone, burnt clay and four radiocarbon dates of charcoal and bone. It was found that the spongy material was 14 C dated to a modern loofah intruded in the tomb A; and the "decoration" in the grooves in the incised ceramic was remnants of the soil in which it was buried and not any possible incrustation or filling with unfired clay. The burnt animal bone analysis by FTIR provided a possible firing at ca 400-550 o C. The OM of the burnt clay has not produced any possible print textile. The radiocarbon dating of charcoal and one bone produced dates ca.13 th c BCE, and the spans from 14thc BCE to late 12 th C BCE is discussed in the light of wiggles during this period in the calibration curve.

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Cyber-Archaeology and the Study of Ancient Edom and Israel

Routledge eBooks, Sep 30, 2022

Economic Strategies of Provincial Elites in Ayyubid Southern Jordan

The 81st Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, 2017

New Perspectives on the Iron Age Edom Steppe and Highlands

New Insights into the Iron Age Archaeology of Edom, Southern Jordan

Radiocarbon dating of Kastrouli settlement: A critical assessment

Journal of Cultural Heritage

The Kastrouli Late Mycenaean/Helladic settlement in Phokis near Delphi has produced extremely sig... more The Kastrouli Late Mycenaean/Helladic settlement in Phokis near Delphi has produced extremely significant data since its inception in 2016, that has enriched our knowledge of the peripheral Mycenaean world. New radiocarbon dating data are presented and critically assessed with earlier reports concerning the span of the habitation and its later reuse. Five new dates are presented and modelled by Bayesian statistical analysis and critically discussed along with other radiocarbon (14 C) and optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) and thermoluminescence (TL) dates (a total of 22) from the site. When considering the 95% probability range, there are two charcoal dates from Building 1 with ranges from 1411 to 1128 (calibrated) BC. For Building 2 the dates span between

A Picture of the Early and Late Iron Age II in the Lowlands

New Insights into the Iron Age Archaeology of Edom, Southern Jordan

The ground stone assemblage from the Early Bronze Age I site Wadi Fidan 4

Stone Tools in the Ancient Near East and Egypt, 2019

At-Risk Cultural Heritage: New Excavations And Finds From The Mycenaean Site Of Kastrouli, Phokis, Greece

The paper presents the excavations of 2016 season at the Mycenaean site of Kastrouli, Phokis. The... more The paper presents the excavations of 2016 season at the Mycenaean site of Kastrouli, Phokis. The site has been looted in the past decades and excavated in a very limited scale by the Archaeological Service. It is located on the top of a rocky hill and delimited by a fortification wall, probably constructed in two phases, the earliest of which could be Mycenaean. A hybrid rock-cut and built chamber tomb, excavated at the westernmost part of the fortified area, contained an undisturbed commingled burial of at least fifteen individuals. The main pottery shape is the stirrup jar, and the small finds include Phi and Psi figurines, steatite beads, and fragments of gold foil. The period of the original use of the tomb falls between the LH IIIA 2 and the LH IIIC Early or Advanced. There is some evidence that the tomb has been reused in the Middle Geometric Period.

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Archfield: A Digital Application for Real- Time Acquisition and Dissemination - from the Field to the Virtual Museum

The lack of efficient digital data processing tools during field excavations is a major bottlenec... more The lack of efficient digital data processing tools during field excavations is a major bottleneck affecting the delay between data collection and dissemination in archaeology. In this paper, we outline the fundamental methodology of ArchField, an integrated digital field recording solution developed to overcome this bottleneck and translate field excavations to virtual museums in real-time. ArchField records sub-centimetre accurate three-dimensional coordinates from Total Stations and RTK GPS units. Recorded field data and measured 3D coordinates are digitally processed to produce auto-generated daily GIS top plans. The processing pipeline enables the generation of publishable online maps from the first day of excavation to the last. It is interoperable with many different GIS viewers and stores data in an online PostGIS database. Digitization of archaeological data in the field is streamlined to facilitate standardization, redundancy and storage that can be immediately made access...

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Iron Age Burial in the Lowlands of Edom. The 2004 Excavations at Wādī Fīdān, Jordan

A Roman Fish-Processing Facility at Tel Dor, Israel: Reinterpreting the Roman 'Purple Dye Factory'

International Journal of Nautical Archaeology, 2025

In this article we suggest that the Roman industrial complex on the coast of Tel Dor in Israel, p... more In this article we suggest that the Roman industrial complex on the coast of Tel Dor in Israel, previously interpreted as a purple dye factory, should be reinterpreted as a cetaria of similar scale to those in the western Mediterranean. We use analogous evidence from cetariae in Spain and Morocco to support this new interpretation. The identification of the Tel Dor fishprocessing facility sheds new light on the participation of Dor in the globalisation of the Roman Mediterranean economy.

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Iron Age ship cargoes from the harbour of Dor (Israel

ANTIQUITY, 2025

Connectivity and trade dominate discussions of the Mediterranean Bronze and Iron Ages, where arte... more Connectivity and trade dominate discussions of the Mediterranean Bronze and Iron Ages, where artefacts travelled increasing distances by land and sea. Much of the evidence for the means through which such networks operated is necessarily indirect, but shipwrecks offer direct insights into the movement of goods. Here, the authors explore three Iron Age cargoes recently excavated at Tel Dor on the Carmel Coast, the first from this period found in the context of an Iron Age port city in Israel. Spanning the eleventh-seventh centuries BC, these cargoes illuminate cycles of expansion and contraction in Iron Age Mediterranean connectivity and integration.

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About Ostriches and People in the Negev Desert, the Southern Levant

by יעל עבאדי-רייס and Thomas E Levy

Archaeological Excavations and Research Studies in Southern Israel Israel Antiquities Authority, 2025

Ostriches are a remarkable resource in the fauna of the southern Levantine deserts, and the use o... more Ostriches are a remarkable resource in the fauna of the southern Levantine deserts, and the use of ostrich eggs (both contents and shells) was a widespread practice in the southern Levantine deserts throughout prehistory. This study highlights two distinct ways in which ostrich eggs were utilized in the Protohistoric Levant. One involves direct use, with rare evidence of live eggs being collected and baked. The other presents indirect evidence of bead production, a practice that was likely much more common but has been underrepresented in current scholarship.

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Levy, T., and S. Shalev 1989 Prehistoric Metalworking in the Southern Levant: Archaeometallurgical and Social Perspectives. World Archaeology 20/3:352-372.

World Archaeology, 1989

Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears... more Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact

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When civilizations collapse

SCIENCE, 2024

C limate change, pandemics, regional wars, collapsing international trade networks and their supp... more C limate change, pandemics, regional wars, collapsing international trade networks and their supply chains, and poor leadership create a recipe for civilizational collapse. Today, these five intertwined processes have led political scientists, economists, and other researchers to wonder whether Western democracies are at immediate risk of collapse. Are you worried? T o u n d e r s t a n d p r e s e n t c h a l l e n g e s , t h e most prescient place to look for answers is the domain of archaeologythe study of how civilizations a r o s e a n d f e l l. O n e o f t h e m o s t intensely excavated regions in the world that provides the data needed to understand deep-time processes of social evolution is the eastern Mediterranean and Near East. There is evidence of several "collapse periods" in this region, including the "4.2 kiloyear event" at the end of the Early Bronze Age around 2200 BCE as well as the rise and fall of the Roman Empire. The collapse of the first truly international economic system occurred at the very end of the Late Bronze Age (LBA), ~1200 BCE, and the subsequent transition to the Iron Age (approximately 1200 to 500 BCE) is most germane today. Eric Cline's new book, After 1177 B.C.: The Survival of Civilizations, provides the first readable synthesis of the hard, complicated data we have from the end of the Bronze Age and offers insights into how different societies in this part of the world succeeded or failed in their responses to the catastrophes of civilizational collapse. Cline is one of those rare scholars with the gift of communicating scientific and historical data to the public, joining the ranks of Jared Diamond, Ian Morris, Niall Ferguson, and others. His new book is a sequel to his After 1177 B.C.:

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Thomas E Levy

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