The terminal Pleistocene and Early Holocene are poorly documented in Arabia, and it is really not until the mid-Holocene ‘climatic optimum’ in the seventh/sixth millennium BC (8850-7850BP) that the record of human settlement resumes. A variety of data (sediments, isotopes, and pollen) from fossil lake beds located in the southern Rub al-Khali (Saudi Arabia and Yemen) and the UAE confirm that this ‘wet’ phase coincided with a temporary, northward displacement of the summer monsoon. At the same time, in the more northerly latitudes, the so-called 8.2 ka (ka = thousand years ago) ‘event’, described as the most abrupt and significant cold event to occur in the past 10 000 years, caused a pronounced aridification in Anatolia and the Levant, which disturbed the pattern of human settlement there, effectively ending the pre-pottery Neolithic phase. The combination of aridification in the Levant and favorable climatic conditions further south in the Arabian peninsula may explain the relatively sudden expansion of settlement throughout Arabia. The earliest stone tool tradition in eastern Arabia during the sixth millennium, a blade-arrowhead industry first identified in Qatar, shows clear links to the late PPNB Levantine lithic tradition, while the slightly later sites of the Arabian ‘Neolithic’ or ‘Late Stone Age’ in eastern Saudi Arabia and the UAE contain faunal evidence of domesticated sheep and goat, both of which must have been introduced. It can therefore be suggested that the expansion of sites in eastern Arabia at this time may have been due to migrating groups from the southern Levant who, with their flocks and distinctive lithic technology, sought to leave behind a deteriorating environment, settling in Arabia during a favorable period when monsoon activity was at its peak and both game and grazing were plentiful (see Animal Domestication).
In northeastern Arabia, the bifacially retouched, barbed and tanged arrowhead is the type fossil of this phase, while in southeastern and southwestern Arabia, apart from the so-called ‘Fasad points’, which are unifacial, foliates and tangless points are more common.
Most of the sites in the northeast and southeast are surface scatters, although stratified sites with multiple hearths, midden-like depositional accretion, burials, and ceramics are known as well. Most of the ceramics were of imported, black-on-greenish buff material of ‘Ubaid-type from Mesopotamia, although a coarse, chaff-tempered redware found on sites like Abu Khamis and Dosariyah in eastern Saudi Arabia may represent local attempts at ceramic manufacture. The mechanisms whereby Mesopotamian pottery was distributed from southern Iraq to sites in Kuwait, eastern Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, and the UAE are unknown, but scholars have speculated that Mesopotamian seamen may have ventured south in search of pearls and other resources, for which they exchanged pottery and perhaps other, perishable items.
As the excavated sites of this period in southeastern Arabia always yield the remains of domesticated sheep, goat, and cattle, it seems appropriate to class the groups inhabiting them as herders who did some hunting on the side, rather than hunters and gatherers who kept livestock. In addition, as can be seen clearly in the UAE, a seasonal pattern of transhumance was practiced. This involved spending winters on the coast, where fish, shellfish, and other marine fauna provided ample protein; spring on the gravel plains of the interior; and summers in the dry desert interior or mountains.
Along with fish, shellfish, and domestic livestock, wild animals like gazelle and oryx were hunted, migratory birds including the Socotran cormorant (Pha-lacrocorax nigrogularis) were caught, and the date palm was exploited, setting a pattern of use which is a hallmark of Arabian horticulture to this day. It is very likely that the animal domesticates were kept primarily for their secondary products - milk, fleece, and hair - while hunted animals (and marine resources) provided the bulk of the protein needs of the population. Importantly, the domestic animals kept in eastern Arabia were capable of turning brackish water, otherwise unfit for human consumption, into potable milk. Given the impossibility of keeping milk very long in an arid environment, it is clear that it was probably turned into some form of cheese or ghee (clarified butter) that could be consumed over a longer period of time.
Excavations at Ras al-Hamra (Oman) and Jabal Buhais 18 (Sharjah, UAE) have revealed large cemeteries dating to this period. These are usually single inhumations in shallow pit graves, although in several cases more than one individual seems to have been interred simultaneously, perhaps as the result of death in a single event. The deceased were buried with a variety of personal belongings including necklaces, headbands, belts, bracelets, and anklets made out of marine shells, coral, mother-of-pearl and stones such as agate, anhydrite, carnelian, chert, jet, limestone, and serpentinite.
Few sites of this period have been excavated in the interior of Arabia or in Yemen, but it is likely that some of the many surface sites on which Arabian bifacials and foliates have been found date to this era. Many fossil lake beds in the southern interior of Arabia, for example, are ringed by remains probably left by hunting parties, though no sites as substantial as those in eastern Arabia, with burials and stratified deposits, have yet been identified.
World History
