Contact
Email
erftenbeck@grinnell.edu
Phone
641-269-4749
Address
Humanities and Social Studies Center, Room S1354
1226 Park St
Grinnell, IA 50112
United States
Hanna Erftenbeck
Assistant Professor
I am an anthropological archaeologist who studies daily life in the past, ancient foodways, and early urbanism. I work mostly in modern day Jordan, but have also excavated and surveyed in Germany, Türkiye, Greece, Israel, and the U.S. My current research focuses on exploring some of the earliest cities in the world, which emerged during the Early Bronze Age (c. 3300-2000 BCE) in the eastern Mediterranean. In addition to my fieldwork at the Early Bronze Age site of Tall al-Handaquq South in the Jordan Valley, I also work with legacy data and museum collections.
Education and Degrees
PhD, Anthropology, University of Notre Dame (2023)
MA, Anthropology, University of Notre Dame (2020)
MA, Archaeology of the Ancient Near East, Freie Universität Berlin (2018)
BA, Archaeology of the Ancient Near East, Freie Universität Berlin (2014)
Selected Publications
Hanna Erftenbeck and Meredith S. Chesson 2025. “Complicated Endings: Household-Based Foodways and the Demise of Early Bronze Age Urban Society in the Southern Levant”. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology 79 (September):101687. .
Chesson, Meredith S., Morag M. Kersel, Susan G. Sheridan, Hanna Erftenbeck, et al. 2024. “Expedition to the Dead Sea Plain (EDSP): Publication Efforts of EDSP Excavations at Bâb Adh-Dhrâ‘ and Numayra.” Archaeology in Jordan 2022 and 2023 Seasons 4:116–18.