Joy McCorriston

My mother raised me with table manners “so that I could have tea with the Queen.” Little did she imagine that the greatest challenge to my etiquette would be dinner with 100 Saudi men and the American deputy ambassador in the heart of the Arabian desert. I had travelled at the invitation of my Embassy to Riyadh to be the only woman in a small delegation of American archaeologists, and the group then went to Wadi Dawasir, with a sincere welcome everywhere we stopped. One dignitary prepared a traditional feast of slaughtered goats, their stewed meaty bones and broth served over vast mounds of rice. We settled on mats to eat, I seated with the deputy ambassador and other honored guests as our hosts gazed expectantly, waiting for guests to eat first. The American men, as is custom, looked at me, the “lady,” for a start. And I looked at the goat, or at least its head perched atop the common tray. Now such a feast was familiar to me, as was the custom of balling rice in the fingers of the right hand, using thumb to pop it into one’s mouth with minimum scatter. I knew from experience how to tear strips of goat meat from bone with one hand and that the fingers of the left should only touch bone for discard. I also sensed the acutely bizarre placement of me to start and wondered why the deputy Ambassador should hang back, but he did, so I did, and a murmur of approval swept the assembly: “Ah, she knows how to eat with her hands!” My colleagues asked for spoons, but no one offered me one, and I realized I was “in.” Anthropologist Clifford Geertz wrote movingly of the difference between tourist and pilgrim, emphasizing that the anthropologist is more like the latter in participating and being transformed by his(her) travel and experience in another culture. Although I wrote this book about Arabian pilgrimage (and I am not Arabian), I nevertheless brings to my archaeological research and teaching a passionate attachment to the Middle East, where I have practiced anthropological archaeology as a student, researcher, resident and frequent guest for more than 30 years, mostly in Arabic-speaking countries and Muslim communities. Born American in Hawaii (22 December 1961), I was educated first at the University of Chicago, then chose to complete myundergraduate degree in Archaeology at University of London’s Institute of Archaeology. I returned to the USA to complete Master’s and Doctoral studies at Yale University after living in Syria and Jordan for Arabic study and excavations. I taught at New York University (1994) and University of Minnesota (1994-1999) before joining The Ohio State University faculty (1999-2010). As a student, I joined excavations in Jordan and Egypt, conducted archaeobotanical research in Syria, Jordan, and Yemen. Since 1996, I have directed archaeological research projects in Yemen and Oman. Currently I lead the Ancient Human Social Dynamics in Arabia Project in Oman, building upon more than a decade of related archaeological and palaeoecological study in Hadramawt, Yemen. My team has documented the earliest food producers (forager-pastoralists) in Arabia and investigated later pastoral specialization, sacrificial rituals, and monuments in pastoral landscapes. I have published 40 academic articles and book chapters on the origins of food production, the development of agricultural economies through the Bronze Age, and South Arabian prehistory. I have developed international and multidisciplinary collaborations with colleagues from Europe and the Middle East and taught overseas at University of Tübingen, Germany and Damascus University, Syria. Recipient of eight grants from the US National Science Foundation, and numerous other research grants, I have also held fellowships from the Smithsonian Institution, a Fulbright Teaching award, and obtained support from the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research and the generous assistance of Canadian Nexen Petroleum Yemen. My work could not have flourished without a team (see my photos) and the help and hospitality of the many Yemeni and Omani researchers, oil workers, students, military, government officials and especially the tribes-people who generously accepted our presence and our ways. Joy McCorriston April 2011