Southeast Arabia Research Articles

Facing Early Bronze Age climate change in South East Arabia: New data from the hydraulic structures of Salūt-ST1, Central Oman: A geoarchaeological perspective

Studies concerning the human response to changing climate in the arid region of South East Arabia are currently scarce and rarely based on geoarchaeological data. The detailed geoarchaeological study of the sedimentary filling of ditches, channels and wells at the Bronze Age tower site of Salūt-ST1, in central Oman, provides the opportunity to start filling this lacuna. The data, collected with a combination of field observation and thin section study, illustrate the lowering of the water table from the Early Bronze Age to the Iron Age II period (c. 2500–600 BC) as a result of local aridification. Besides, they shed light on the ways in which the community living in the area first exploited a still favourable situation with a relatively abundant water supply and later was forced to cope with the deteriorating climate around the end of the third millennium BC. While the study highlights climate change at a relatively small scale, the results and their interpretation are contextualized with other, larger-scale paleoclimate data available for the region. The Early Bronze Age hydraulic structures of Salūt-ST1 are also discussed in relation to similar structures excavated in South East Arabia.

Reflecting Experiences of Regional Academic, Tourism, and Education Specialists in Geoheritage Evaluation for Fujairah, UAE and Southeast Arabia

In Southeast Arabia (i.e. the United Arab Emirates [UAE] and Oman), geoconservation is a budding initiative, but to date, there has been limited evaluation of geoheritage sites in this region. Many geoheritage evaluation methods have been developed over the last 20 years, but the most popular methods reflect experiences from experts in Europe. The representativeness of these methods for different regional, cultural, and social contexts requires scrutiny. This study developed the first parametric method for geoheritage evaluation focused on Southeast Arabia, using Fujairah, UAE as a case study. The study applied a novel approach based on questionnaires completed by regional geoscience academics, local nature tourism professionals, and local science teachers. The preferences they expressed for scientific value, educational value, and touristic value, respectively, were used to develop the evaluation method. To test the requirements for informed decisions by tourism professionals and science teachers, the study compared results of questionnaires from two occasions: after a seminar on regional geoheritage sites, and after site visits. The resulting method deviates from previous methods in the relative weight it places on various criteria, substantiating the need to target wider regional voices in methods for geoheritage evaluation in Fujairah and Southeast Arabia. It reflects the need to consider cultural and societal differences, as well as curricular requirements for the educational value, that are not highlighted in existing evaluation methods. The applicability of the method was tested and confirmed by ranking geosites in Fujairah, and the method could be used at a regional scale in the future.

A note on the trident mark, stone worship and cult practices in Southeast Arabia

AbstractThe worship of baetyls in antiquity is well documented in the Near East and the Mediterranean, archaeologically as well as historically. While such practices were also common in South‐East Arabia, the archaeological information on it is still very limited. A boulder carved with a ‘trident’ (a mark familiar from local Abiel coin issues), which came to light at the site of Mleiha, has a circular cavity on the side similar to those visible on stones and on an eagle statue from contemporary ed‐Dur. This association suggests a religious context for the Mleiha petroglyph and, thus, a possible identification as a baetyl. The archaeological evidence for stone worship and associated cult practices from the SE‐Arabian Mleiha/PIR A‐C period (3rd century bce–3rd century ce) is reviewed and compared with ethnographic parallels and information from, among other sources, the Kitāb al‐aṣnām (Book of Idols) by Hishām ibn al‐Kalbī (737–819 ce).

Karstic Aquifers and Climate Refugia: A Preliminary Outline History of Water-Management Strategy in Bronze and Iron Age Southeast Arabia

Karstic Aquifers and Climate Refugia: A Preliminary Outline History of Water-Management Strategy in Bronze and Iron Age Southeast Arabia

The aggradation of alluvial fans in response to monsoon variability over the last 400 ka in the Hajar Mountains, south-east Arabia

The preservation and interpretation of past external forcings within sedimentary archives can be complicated. Marine proxy records show that, throughout the Mid-Late Quaternary, monsoon rainfall in south-east Arabia has varied at precessional timescales (∼ 23 ka). By contrast, terrestrial environmental records from the region, such as speleothems and palaeolake sequences, generally only capture rainfall variability at eccentricity (∼ 100 ka) timescales and geomorphological archives rarely record events over multiple glacial cycles. Previous work has suggested that the alluvial fan systems of the Hajar Mountains record aggradation coincident with precessional peaks because of more northerly Indian Ocean Summer Monsoon (IOSM) rainfall, relative to present. However, the alluvial record is complex: there is a growing body of ‘anomalous’ aggradation age data from periods of precessional minima and it is spatially uneven, mainly being derived from fans at either the northern- or southern-most extents of the western side of the mountains.We present optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) ages of alluvial aggradation from new sites in the central portion of the western and eastern sides of the Hajar mountains. Sedimentary units that show evidence of more sustained flow conditions, such as coarse conglomerate deposition and the development of thick floodplain deposits, typically date to periods of higher IOSM rainfall at precessional timescales. Sites where there is evidence of deposition under more ephemeral flow conditions, like today, yield ages corresponding to precessional minima. We synthesise these data with similarly interpreted alluvial and lacustrine deposits from across the region, employing a hierarchical clustering approach to generate clusters of ages representing periods of increased hydrological activity. This objective approach to regional chronological data suggests that ten periods of more sustained hydrological activity are evidenced across the Hajar region, broadly aligning to precessional and eccentricity peaks over the last 400 ka. These clusters show that Hajar fans predominately aggrade because of increasing rainfall over their catchments, with the central ages of clusters often aligning with the onset of precessional forcing. Hajar alluvial systems preserve important records of Quaternary climate variability over long timescales in an arid region where terrestrial records are scarce due to preservation issues.

Mapping spatial patterning of Bronze Age towers in Oman according to water flow accumulation

AbstractWater played an undeniably significant role in the origins of complex societies across the Near East, but political complexity in regions like Southeast Arabia diverges dramatically from the more well‐known histories of Egypt, the Levant and Mesopotamia. Through quantitative analysis, this paper investigates spatial associations between water availability and Umm an‐Nar towers in Adh Dhahirah Governorate of Oman. We hypothesise that ancient Umm an‐Nar people targeted high water flow accumulation areas for major settlements with towers. Our results lead us to reject the null hypothesis of no spatial association between tower settlements and water and help clarify the role of water in the rise of complex polities.

From Dilmun to Wādī al‐Fāw: A forgotten desert corridor, c. 2000 BC

AbstractThere is a lacuna of knowledge on the inland trade routes across Bronze Age central Arabia, which this article seeks to fill based on new evidence from Wādī al‐Fāw, Saudi Arabia. Contrary to a common belief that interior Southeast Arabia after the Holocene Humid Phase and until the domestication of the dromedary had turned desolate Badlands, this study offers documentation that during the early Bronze Age, a commercial corridor connected the Kingdom of Dilmun on the Arabian Gulf coast with the southern parts of Saudi Arabia, probably Yemen. Seals of Dilmun Type, Dilmun pottery and related burial praxis make up the gist of the evidence from Wādī al‐Fāw. A dry mummification mound burial custom is possibly identified at al‐Fāw and probably Taymāʾ, which contrasts the classic Dilmun mound burial custom. An attempt is made to reconstruct the most likely route that connected Dilmun and Wādī al‐Fāw. The emergence around 2000 BC of this trade network, likely based on donkey trains, closely coincides with the rise of the Kingdom of Dilmun, but surprisingly also with a time when Arabia witnessed unusually arid conditions. Identification of this unexpected ancient corridor should profoundly affect how upcoming models consider linguistic, ideological, genetic, cultural and technological transmission across Bronze Age Arabia.

Developing a Geocultural Database of Quaternary Palaeoenvironmental Sites and Archaeological Sites in Southeast Arabia: Inventory, Endangerment Assessment, and a Roadmap for Conservation

Quaternary palaeoenvironmental (QP) sites in Southeast Arabia are important not only to understand the history of global climate change but also to study how ancient humans adapted to a changing natural environment. These sites, however, are currently missing from conservation frameworks despite reports of destroyed sites and sites under imminent threat. This study presents the Geocultural Database of Southeast Arabia, the first open-access database on QP sites in this region, created as a comprehensive inventory of regional QP sites and a tool to analyse QP records and archaeological records. The endangerment assessment of QP sites in this database reveals that 13% of QP sites have already been destroyed and 15% of them are under imminent threat of destruction, primarily due to urban development and infrastructure development. Chronological and spatial analyses of QP and archaeological sites and records highlight the intricate relationship between palaeoenvironment and archaeology and emphasise the need for sub-regional-scale studies to understand the variation of climatic conditions within the region, especially to study changes in the ancient human demography. This database illustrates the potential of a geocultural approach that combines archaeological heritage with Quaternary geoheritage as a way forward for the conservation of QP sites at risk.

Exchange networks of the Early Bronze Age Gulf: The imported ceramics from Kalba 4 (United Arab Emirates)

AbstractImported ceramics from Early Bronze Age contexts in southeast Arabia illustrate a complex multidirectional network of material and social interactions at this time. Significant socioeconomic changes that occurred in the Hafit (3200–2800 B.C.) and Umm an‐Nar (2800–2000 B.C.) periods have been linked to external demand for copper, which is argued to have stimulated a change in subsistence patterns. Similarly, disruption to long‐distance exchange networks by external factors has been cited as driving change at the end of the Umm an‐Nar period. Archaeological evidence from the region suggests a shift in the direction of exchange from Mesopotamia to the Indus occurred around the middle of the third millennium B.C. However, a recent analysis of Mesopotamian historical sources has highlighted the scale of state‐organised textile production for export to the lower Gulf in the later third millennium B.C. The site of Kalba 4 has a stratified sequence of occupation deposits dating from the Umm an‐Nar and Iron Age (1300–300 B.C.). In this study, a typological analysis of imported ceramics is used to locate the Kalba in the chronological framework of the region and discuss the changing networks of long‐distance exchange that were operating. The imported pottery at Kalba 4 indicates that the inhabitants of the site were exchanging goods with a range of polities, including southern Mesopotamia, the Indus Valley (Meluhha), southeast Iran (Marhashi) and Bahrain (Dilmun). A significant quantity of Late Akkadian ceramics at the site suggests it became an important location for Mesopotamian trade at this time.

Characteristics of dried fish stores: Evidence based on an intact pit from Late Islamic Qatar

Archaeological evidence for the preparation of preserved fish is common. Preserving fish allowed stockpiling of temporary abundance of food created by good catches and seasonal plenty. In traditional societies, the majority of fish caught are preserved for later use rather than consumed fresh. Ethnographic information from southeast Arabia, and the wider region, for the storage of fish provides interesting details of the process. Archaeological evidence for fish storage is not usually the stored product itself, but distinctive species and element composition of preparation waste or post-consumption refuse. Archaeologists rarely excavate a complete cache of preserved fish. This study presents data from a fish storage pit, capped with a mud seal, excavated at the Late Islamic site of Freiha (al-Furayḥa) in Qatar. The contents of the pit were intact providing an opportunity to examine the practice of storing dried fish from the product itself and compare this evidence to ethnographic accounts.

A statistical approach for identification of dust-AOD hotspots climatology and clustering of dust regimes over Southwest Asia and the Arabian Sea

Daily atmospheric composition and meteorological data from MACC and ERA-5 reanalysis, were combined to analyse the spatiotemporal variability of dust-aerosol optical depth (DAOD) and to identify the prevailing dust regimes using Empirical Orthogonal Functions (EOFs) and Principal Component Analysis (PCA), respectively, over southwest Asia and the Arabian Sea from 2003 to 2012. The analysis reveals four DAOD regimes influenced by the relative positions of the monsoon low, persistent high-pressure systems and thermal lows and the associated wind regimes. The Southeast (SE) Arabia regime, is detected over the eastern Rub-Al Khali and Oman Deserts and is associated with cyclonic flows and low-pressure systems over the southeast Arabian Peninsula, while the highest DAOD are observed over the convergence zone of Shamal and monsoon winds. The Arabian Sea regime is associated with high dust presence over the marine environment originated from arid/desert lands in Saudi Arabia, Iran and Pakistan, and the concurrent action of monsoon, Shamal and Levar winds. The Thar regime is characterized by a deep thermal low over Pakistan and strong monsoon winds acting as density currents over the desert area, resulting in highest DAOD over NW India. The Aden Gulf regime, is characterized by a ridge stretched through Sudan to Bab al-Mandab Strait and a surface high-pressure system prevailed over the eastern Mediterranean and west Arabian Peninsula, resulting in anticyclonic pathway of dust plumes from the Arabian deserts and westerly dust flows from sources in Eritrea and Sudan that accumulate dust over the Gulf of Aden.

Multiple phases of human occupation in Southeast Arabia between 210,000 and 120,000\xa0years ago

Changing climatic conditions are thought to be a major control of human presence in Arabia during the Paleolithic. Whilst the Pleistocene archaeological record shows that periods of increased monsoon rainfall attracted human occupation and led to increased population densities, the impact of arid conditions on human populations in Arabia remains largely speculative. Here, we present data from Jebel Faya in Southeast (SE) Arabia, which document four periods of human occupation between c. 210,000 and 120,000 years ago. The Jebel Faya record indicates that human occupation of SE Arabia was more regular and not exclusively linked to major humid periods. Our data show that brief phases of increased rainfall additionally enabled human settlement in the Faya region. These results imply that the mosaic environments in SE Arabia have likely formed a population refugia at the end of the Middle and the beginning of the Late Pleistocene.

Iron Age basketry in South East Arabia : a note from Salūt (Oman)

Iron Age basketry in South East Arabia : a note from Salūt (Oman)

Revisiting ‘Settlement’: A case study of terminology and Early Bronze Age southeast Arabia

The settlement—a place on a landscape where a human group lives and interacts—has become such a fundamental social and material concept in archaeology that it is rarely explicitly defined. The breadth of meaning built into the term allows it to transcend regional, temporal, and contextual differences in site form, size, and composition. However, just as this combination of versatility and implied meaning makes settlement applicable to archaeological studies worldwide, it also creates conditions in which the term’s social significance may be overlooked or where it may be misapplied in ways that lead to false equivalencies and mischaracterizations. Through a literary review of research on Umm an-Nar period (UaN; ca. 2700–2000 BCE) sites of the Oman Peninsula, this paper examines the ways in which broad (mis)applications of the term ‘settlement’ can deeply impact scholarly understanding of an ancient society. Inconsistencies in UaN settlement identification—born of regional variations in the archaeological record, coarse temporal clarity, and the history of scholarship in southeast Arabia—are shown to have significant ramifications for how UaN society is analyzed, interpreted, and characterized in archaeological literature. It is argued that settlement-focused archaeological studies would universally benefit from explicit definition(s) of the term and greater precision in its application.

Evidence for Fishing with Remora across the World and Archaeological Evidence from Southeast Arabia: A Case Study in Human-Animal Relations

Evidence for Fishing with Remora across the World and Archaeological Evidence from Southeast Arabia: A Case Study in Human-Animal Relations

Ancient agriculture in Southeast Arabia: A three thousand year record of runoff farming from central Oman (Rustaq)

Runoff farming is a key hydro-agricultural strategy that has proven efficient in arid areas. Research in Arabia on the function, development, maintenance, durability and abandonment of this technology is scarce. A multiproxy investigation (cartography, sedimentology, pedology, geochemistry, paleo-ecology and chronology) was conducted on a recently abandoned terraced area in Rustaq, Northern Oman. The aim was to characterize the formation, function and management of this runoff system and the driving factors behind its success. Cycles of cultivation were identified during the Iron Age II/III periods (specifically 750–450 BCE), the Early Pre-Islamic Period (PIR) (specifically 350–200 BCE), the Early and Middle Islamic periods (specifically 8–10th C CE, 13th-14th C CE) and the late Islamic period (specifically 17th C CE and later). This expansion and perenniality was possible thanks to: 1- available water (local to micro-regional orogenic precipitation despite a regional aridification during these periods); 2- suitable soils (weathered geological outcrops, probable aeolian /dust particles); 3- a system of production combining crops and husbandry; 4- a progressive increase in agricultural specialization (crops grown and techniques) in parallel with a diversification in hydraulic technology. These results are to some degree in accordance with known phases of settlement intensification and economic growth, but also reveal the persistence of small-scale rural livelihoods during periods of harsh conditions for which archaeological traces are very scarce.

More on the identification of fish bones from southeast Arabia

AbstractIdentification of fish bones from archeological sites in southeast Arabia requires access to an extensive reference collection. This is often not possible, and repeated use of these resources when they are available ultimately damages bones. This paper provides a platform from which high‐resolution images of 60 species of marine fishes from southeast Arabia can be downloaded, aiding identification and providing illustrations that other researchers can modify to produce graphics to highlight taphonomic modification to bones or illustrate measurements taken.

Шкатулки бронзового века: экзотические импорты, подражания-скевоморфы и локальное производство от Центральной Азии до Шумера

This paper briefly reviews some of the excavated evidence for decorated boxes found at sites from Mesopotamia to Central Asia in the late 3rd millennium BC, and concludes that one published from an Akkadian grave at Nippur is a Harappan import. Similar types of box found at Gonur depe were used to contain mirrors, and this also provides a new explanation for the Nippur box. Remains of other types of decorated box are also known from elite graves at Gonur and Ur, some of a size consistent with trunks or chests, but others much smaller and employing iconogra- phy peculiar to their cultural context. This paper draws attention to the fact that the boards for the “Game of Twenty Squares” were originally hollow in order to hold the pieces, and that the so-called “Standard of Ur” was also a box, rather than the solid object it has been reconstructed and known as. In other regions, such as southeast Arabia and Iran, small compartmented boxes were also carved from chlorite but larger examples were probably also made of wood. The fired clay boxes also known from eastern Iran and southwest Central Asia may well have had wooden counterparts which have not survived. In short, a much greater variety of boxes of different types and sizes were used at this period than is generally acknowledged.

On the diversity of the Palaeolithic record and patterns of Pleistocene palaeoenvironmental conditions in Southeast Arabia

On the diversity of the Palaeolithic record and patterns of Pleistocene palaeoenvironmental conditions in Southeast Arabia

An aid to the identification of fish bones from southeast Arabia: The influence of reference collections on taxonomic diversity

AbstractIdentification of fish bones from archaeological sites in southeast Arabia is challenging because of high taxonomic diversity, comparatively few reference collections with a wide range of species, as well as access to these resources. This paper provides illustrations of bones from many common taxonomic groups of fish from the southeast Arabia including several species of fish identified in very few assemblages, probably because of the lack of comparative reference material. This is a guide to aid other analysts in the identification process. We also consider the effect of reference collection size on the taxonomic diversity of analysed fish bone assemblages and conclude that research would benefit by the publication of further identification guides. Ideally these should include differences between closely related species, as this has a significant impact on the taxonomic diversity of archaeo‐ichthyological assemblages. Although many papers are devoted to the influence of sample size, recovery method or recording protocols on the taxonomic diversity of faunal assemblages, a similar discussion on the effect of the reference collection used is often overlooked.