Monumental landscapes of the Holocene humid period in Northern Arabia: The mustatil phenomenon.

Huw S Groucutt,Mathew Stewart,Ceri Shipton,Abdulaziz Al Omarfi,Nick Drake,Maria Guagnin,Michael D Petraglia,Badr Zahrani,Abdullah M Alsharekh,Paul S Breeze

doi:10.1177/0959683620950449

Abstract

Between 10 and six thousand years ago the Arabian Peninsula saw the most recent of the ‘Green Arabia’ periods, when increased rainfall transformed this generally arid region. The transition to the Neolithic in Arabia occurred during this period of climatic amelioration. Various forms of stone structures are abundant in northern Arabia, and it has been speculated that some of these dated to the Neolithic, but there has been little research on their character and chronology. Here we report a study of 104 ‘mustatil’ stone structures from the southern margins of the Nefud Desert in northern Arabia. We provide the first chronometric age estimate for this type of structure – a radiocarbon date of ca. 5000 BC – and describe their landscape positions, architecture and associated material culture and faunal remains. The structure we have dated is the oldest large-scale stone structure known from the Arabian Peninsula. The mustatil phenomenon represents a remarkable development of monumental architecture, as hundreds of these structures were built in northwest Arabia. This ‘monumental landscape’ represents one of the earliest large-scale forms of monumental stone structure construction anywhere in the world. Further research is needed to understand the function of these structures, but we hypothesise that they were related to rituals in the context of the adoption of pastoralism and resulting territoriality in the challenging environments of northern Arabia.

Highlights

The early to middle Holocene archaeology and climate of ArabiaThe study of the prehistory of Arabia has lagged behind other regions, but recent advances have begun to correct this imbalance (e.g. Groucutt and Petraglia, 2012; Magee, 2014; Petraglia and Rose, 2009; Petraglia et al, 2015)
We identified a total of 104 mustatils around the southern margins of the Nefud Desert
The archaeological record of northern Arabia indicates that a remarkable development had occurred by around 5000 BC

Summary

Introduction

The early to middle Holocene archaeology and climate of ArabiaThe study of the prehistory of Arabia has lagged behind other regions, but recent advances have begun to correct this imbalance (e.g. Groucutt and Petraglia, 2012; Magee, 2014; Petraglia and Rose, 2009; Petraglia et al, 2015). Holocene archaeological sites are much more abundant than those of the Pleistocene (e.g. Drechsler, 2009; Guagnin et al, 2017a, 2020; Magee, 2014; Petraglia et al, 2020; Scerri et al, 2018b; Zielhofer et al, 2018). One fascinating aspect of the Holocene archaeological record of Arabia concerns the abundant stone structures which were constructed across the area. We explore the origin and development of Arabian stone structures in the context of the wider environmental and archaeological records. Of particular interest for earlier periods are forms known as desert kites and, as focussed on in this paper, mustatils which have previously been described as ‘gates’ (Kennedy, 2017). The precise age of these older forms, their function, and origins are all currently unclear

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