About the authors:
Conrad Schmidt is a research fellow within the framework of his own German Research Foundation (DFG) project at the Institute for Ancient Near Eastern Studies (IANES) of the University of Tübingen. His work focuses on the socio-economic development and material culture of the Ancient Near East during the Bronze Age (3rd and 2nd millennia BC), as well as the human–environment relationship. Conrad studied Near Eastern Archaeology and the Philology of the Ancient Near East at the universities of Leipzig, Halle-Wittenberg, London and Tübingen. He wrote his PhD thesis on the Early and Middle Bronze Age pottery of Tell Mozan, Syria (2007, summa cum laude). Afterwards he held a full-time position in the Qatna project of the University of Tübingen. Conrad has conducted various archaeological research projects in the Sultanate of Oman since 2010, including Bat, Al-Zebah, Al-Ayn, Al-Khashbah, "UmWeltWandel" and Sinaw-Al Mutayla.