Development of the Bronze Age landscape in the southeastern Arabian Gulf: new evidence from a buried shell midden in the eastern extremity of the Rub’ al‐Khali desert, Emirate of Ras al‐Khaimah, U.A.E.

Abstract

Recent sand quarrying operations for building and construction work in the eastern extremity of the Rub’ al‐Khali sand sea has revealed sediment exposures through a number of coastal and inland dunes. In the al‐Daith district of Ras al‐Khaimah (U.A.E.) a Holocene shell midden was exposed 2.8 m below the present dune surface interstratified between phases of Late Pleistocene and late Holocene dune sands. C14 and OSL ages constrain the site giving an insight into phases of landscape instability, dune formation, rates of sediment accretion, and a period of stability and human occupation. To date, Hafit period sites (5200–4500 cal BP) have been recorded in large numbers in the mountains and gravel plains of the Oman mountains. Coastal shell middens have not, as yet, been ascribed to the Hafit period from this part of the region and the study presents the first radiocarbon age from such a site. This study indicates the potential that many other sites exist elsewhere buried under late Holocene dune sediments and these provide an important insight into the development of the coastal landscape of this region.