Jeff Rose

In Dhofar, southern Oman, the Nejd plateau's deep canyons once flowed with perennial rivers, feeding wetland environments, forests, and grasslands across the now desiccated interior. The first peoples of Oman flourished along these waterways, drawn to the freshwater springs and abundant game, as well as the myriad chert outcrops with which to fashion their hunting implements and other tools. The landscapes of the Nejd plateau are a natural museum of human prehistory, covered in carpets of chipped stone debris. The archaeological evidence presented in this work encompasses the cultural remains of over a million years of successive human occupations - from the Lower Palaeolithic to the Late Palaeolithic. Once considered an evolutionary backwater or merely a migratory way station, the archaeology of Dhofar requires a fundamental reconsideration of the role of southern Arabia in the origin and dispersal of our species.

Lithic raw material properties are often invoked to explain the presence, absence, form, or ontogeny of Paleolithic stone tools. Here, we explore whether the frequency of the Middle Paleolithic Nubian core form and core-reduction systems co-varies with toolstone quality in two neighboring regions in Oman: the southern region of Nejd, Dhofar, and the south-central region of Duqm, Al Wusta. Specifically, we predicted that if raw material differences were influencing the distribution of Nubian cores, the chert would be of higher quality in the southern region, where Nubian cores were frequent, and of lower quality in the south-central region, where they were scarce. We tested this prediction by collecting 124 chert samples from 22 outcrops and then quantitatively assessed two geochemical variables that are widely thought to influence knapping: impurity amount and silica content. We also examined the mineralogical composition, and the crystallite size and lattice strain for quartz (crystalline α-SiO 2) of representative chert samples. Our results suggest that the cherts in the two regions are similar, which is not consistent with the hypothesis that lithic raw material quality contributed to Nubian core spatial distribution in Oman. We discuss potential alternative hypotheses to explain Nubian core geographic patterning, and provisionally suggest that the scarcity of Nubian cores in south-central Oman may be due to a concomitant scarcity of toolmakers, given a lack of water availability.

Ongoing archaeological investigations in the Dhufār region of southern Oman have mapped some 800 lithic findspots distributed across the Dhufār Mountains, Nejd Plateau, and the southern Rub’ al Khali Desert. These include extensive lithic workshops, specialized activity sites, as well as isolated armatures and cores. The array of lithic reduction strategies represents successive stages of technological evolution from the Pleistocene to the Holocene, supported by a handful of absolute dates from stratified contexts. This paper explores distribution patterns for sites with technological and typological attributes belonging to the Lower, Middle, Upper, Late Palaeolithic, and Neolithic periods. The aim is to synthesize the comprehensive results of two decades of prehistoric investigations in southern Oman. These results seek to contextualize changes in settlement patterns within the oscillating palaeoenvironments of South Arabia.


Les recherches archéologiques en cours dans la région du Dhufār, au sud du sultanat d’Oman, ont permis de cartographier plus de 800 localités et gisements préhistoriques se trouvant dans la zone montagneuse du Dhufār, les canyons du Nejd et jusqu’au désert du Rub' al Khali. Il s’agit notamment d’ateliers de taille, de sites d’activités spécialisées, de nucléus et de pointes pédonculées isolés. Les différentes chaînes opératoires identifiées représentent les étapes d’une évolution technologique depuis le Paléolithique inférieur jusqu’au Néolithique. Allant du Pléistocène jusqu’à l’Holocène, ces contextes sont soutenus par des datations absolues. Cet article explore la variabilité technologique et les schémas de distribution des sites au cours du Paléolithique. L’objectif est de synthétiser les résultats exhaustifs de deux décennies de recherches archéologiques dans le sud du sultanat d’Oman. Ces résultats permettent de contextualiser les modèles de dynamiques des populations préhistoriques au sein de paléoenvironnements extrêmement variables de l’Arabie du Sud.

Nubian Levallois technology has recently risen to the forefront of debates surrounding Late Pleistocene human technological behavior, cultural traditions, and demographic histories. Named after the region where it was first identified, Nubian Levallois describes a specific method of lithic point production that occurs in Middle Palaeolithic (or Middle Stone Age) assemblages across arid North Africa, the Levant and Arabia. However, the recent identification of Nubian technology in separate, disconnected regions, such as South Africa and possibly India suggests there are more diverse scenarios of its emergence and spread than the original model of a broad Nubian technocomplex related to a single, expanding population from its north‐east African heartland. While few assemblages containing Nubian technology are directly dated, its proposed MIS 5 timing coincides with early modern human dispersals out of Africa, adding a further dimension of whether certain lithic technologies can be linked to specific geographic populations.

Currently, advancing this debate is hindered by having neither an accepted definition of what constitutes Nubian technology, nor a consensus on its role in modern human cultural evolution and population dynamics. To address this, 22 archaeologists met for an international workshop with two aims: (1) refining the definition of the Nubian technological method and how it can be identified in assemblages; and (2) re‐evaluating the relation- ship between Nubian technology as a reduction strategy and the Nubian Complex as a cultural entity in the context of current evidence. The specialist group of lithic analysts brought expertise in relevant assemblages—particularly those where Nubian technology forms a prominent component—from across Africa, the Levant and Arabia, contributing a diverse range of approaches and perspectives to this salient debate.

Blinkhorn et al. present a reanalysis of fossil and lithic material from Garrod's 1928 excavation at Shukbah Cave, identifying the presence of Nubian Levallois cores and points in direct association with a Neanderthal molar. The authors argue that this demonstrates the Nubian reduction strategy forms a part of the wider Middle Palaeolithic lithic repertoire, therefore its role as a cultural marker for Homo sapiens population movements is invalid. We raise the following four major concerns: (1) we question the assumptions made by the authors about the integrity and homogeneity of the Layer D assemblage and (2) the implications of this for the association of the Neanderthal tooth with any specific component of the assemblage, (3) we challenge the authors' attribution of lithic material to Nubian Levallois technology according to its strict definition, and (4) we argue that the comparative data presented derive from a biased sample of sites. These points critically undermine the article's conclusion that Shukbah's Neanderthals made Nubian cores and thus the argument that Neanderthals might have made Nubian technology elsewhere is unsubstantiated.

Despite its significant geographic position along the southern corridor into and out of Africa, little is known of the period between 70 and 12 thousand years ago in South Arabia. The existing archeological data come from a handful of lithic surface scatters and buried sites with broad chronological constraints. Here, we report the open-air site of Matafah, a stratified deposit in the Wadi Ghadun drainage system of Dhofar, southern Oman. The accretional terrace discovered at Matafah is composed of low-energy overbank sediments interstratified with cemented layers of fluvial gravels, eolian sands, and hillslope deposits. Three discrete archeological horizons were excavated from the 2.5-m stratigraphic sequence, including Holocene assemblages that overlie a heretofore-unknown assemblage type with geometric microliths. Optically stimulated luminescence age estimates bracket this lower assemblage between 33 and 30 thousand years ago, providing the earliest evidence for the use of projectile armatures in the Arabian Peninsula.

The Arabian climate fluctuated between phases of extreme aridity and humidity over the course of the Quaternary. Archaeologists have registered a diverse record of human occupation throughout the mosaic of ecosystems in the Peninsula, regions variably affected by the ebb and flow of precipitation. In some areas, the history of habitation is disjointed, with clear breaks in cultural continuity, while other parts of Arabia exhibit enduring traditions across oscillating climatic phases. In this paper, we explore the evo- lution of local populations and cultures in South Arabia through recent archaeogenetic and archaeological findings. We look at the prehistoric record from the Last Glacial Maximum to the end of the Holocene Climate Optimum. The emerging picture tends to suggest that the indigenous peoples of southern Arabia developed from a local demo- graphic reservoir. The shift to animal husbandry took place here between 9,000 and 8,000 years BP. We evaluate if this transformation was the result of 1) foreign herders spreading into the region, bringing with them domesticated livestock, 2) the indigenous population importing domesticated animals, and/or 3) an independent locus of cattle domestication in South Arabia.

Burins are a geographic and time-transgressive tool type, found in lithic industries throughout the world. The defining feature of a burin is the administration of a precisely placed blow (i.e., burin blow) on a natural or prepared striking platform at the edge of a blank. Burins were used for various activities, such as fashioning hunting equipment, figurines, musical instruments, or other decorative objects manufactured from wood, antler, or bone. In other settings, researchers have observed burins that were also used as cores, demonstrating the flexibility and utility of this tool type. Here we present the results of technological, typological and functional analyses of three burin assemblages from the Late Paleolithic of Dhofar, southern Arabia. Technological analysis indicates a significant degree of standardized production. Functional analysis suggests that these tools have been used in woodworking activities. Traceological studies suggest that the function of the burin blow was not the creation of an active working face, as often seen in the Southwest Asian and European Upper Paleolithic; rather, the burin blow functioned to stabilize the truncation and working edge of the tool. Traces of use have been identified mainly on the wide truncations, indicating that the artifacts were likely used to plane broad wooden surfaces. From these observations, we infer that woodworking was a significant component of Late Paleolithic human activity in Dhofar.

Nubian Levallois technology is the defining characteristic of the Middle Paleolithic or Middle Stone Age technocomplex known as the Nubian Complex. Until recently, this technocomplex was found exclusively in northeastern Africa; however, archaeological surveys conducted across the Arabian Peninsula in the last decade have expanded the known distribution of this technological phenomenon. Since 2009, researchers from separate archaeological missions have mapped sites yielding Nubian cores and debitage, and by extension Nubian technology, in the southern, central and northernmost parts of the Arabia Peninsula. Nubian Complex artifacts in central and southern Arabia were made using different raw materials: in Al-Kharj (central Saudi Arabia) Middle Paleolithic industries were made exclusively on quartzite, while in Dhofar (southern Oman) chert was the only knappable material available for use. Given these differences, we sought to examine the influence of raw material variability on core morphology and size. Contrary to initial hypothesis, this study finds that the differences recorded are not a function of raw material properties. In both areas, Nubian cores were reduced using the same technological systems producing a set of preferential blanks. Rather, the recorded differences from raw material constrains were primarily due to knapping accidents, which occur in higher proportions at quartzite-based assemblages from Al-Kharj (specifically the siret fracture) compared with the chert assemblages from Dhofar. In sum, we argue that raw material had little effect on Nubian Levallois core technology and was not a constraint on Nubian Complex artisans.

Objective: Frequency patterns of the lactase persistence (LP)-associated 213,915 G allele and archaeological records pointing to substantial role played by southern regions in the peopling and domestication processes that involved the Arabian Peninsula suggest that Southern Arabia plausibly represented the center of diffusion of such adaptive variant. Nevertheless, a well-defined scenario for evolution of Arabian LP is still to be elucidated and the burgeoning archaeological picture of complex human migrations occurred through the peninsula is not matched by an equivalent high-resolution description of genetic variation underlying this adaptive trait. To fill this gap, we investigated diversity at a wide genomic interval surrounding the LCT gene in different Southern Arabian populations. Methods: 40 SNPs were genotyped to characterize LCT profiles of 630 Omani and Yemeni individuals to perform population structure, linkage disequilibrium, population differentiation-based and haplotype-based analyses. Results: Typical Arabian LP-related variation was found in Dhofaris and Yemenis, being characterized by private haplotypes carrying the 213,915 G allele, unusual differentiation with respect to northern groups and conserved homozygous haplotype-blocks, suggesting that the adaptive allele was likely introduced in the Arabian gene pool in southern populations and was then subjected to prolonged selective pressure. Conclusion: By pointing to Yemen as one of the best candidate centers of diffusion of the Arabian-specific adaptive variant, obtained results indicate the spread of indigenous groups as the main process underlying dispersal of LP along the Arabian Peninsula, supporting a refugia model for Arabian demic movements occurred during the Terminal Pleistocene and Early Holocene.

The Neolithic peopling of Arabia is a subject of increasing debate, as different scenarios are proposed to describe the relatively sudden appearance of seemingly homogeneous archaeological sites throughout the south of the Peninsula during the Early Holocene. Such sites are identified by the co-occurrence of a laminar core reduction strategy with its supposed fossile directeur, the " Fasad point. " This techno-typological package has been used by some to link these sites with an expansion of pastoralists from the Levant. A recent study of blade technologies in Southern Arabia, however, demonstrates a large degree of internal variability within these reduction strategies, whilst an interregional study of Fasad points reveals this artifact category to be both time-transgressive and morpho-metrically variable across parts of Southern Arabia. Archaeological findings from al-Hatab Rockshelter in Dhofar, Oman go further to challenge the notion of an expansion originating in the Levant and spreading across Southern Arabia. Here we demonstrate that an indigenous occupation with a blade technology and tanged points pre-dates the 'Levantine expansion' by at least four millennia. Based on the lithic assemblage from al-Hatab, we argue the Arabian Late Palaeolithic developed locally in Southern Arabia, forming part of the previously defined Nejd Leptolithic tradition. The evidence from al-Hatab in conjunction with recent genetic findings indicates that some groups in Southern Arabia have persisted there since the Late Paleolithic ca 13,000 years ago, if not earlier. Résumé : Le peuplement néolithique de l'Arabie est devenu le sujet de nombreux débats, alors que différents scénarios ont été proposés pour expliquer l'apparition soudaine de sites archéologiques apparemment homogènes à travers le sud de la péninsule au cours de l'Holocène ancien. Ces sites sont identifiés par la concomitance d'une stratégie de débitage laminaire avec son fossile directeur supposé : la « pointe de Fasad ». Cet assemblage typo-technologique est utilisé pour relier ces sites à l'expansion de pasteurs venus du Levant. Une étude technologique récente sur le débitage laminaire d'Arabie du Sud a cependant montré une forte variabilité parmi ces stratégies de débitage, alors qu'une étude interrégionale des « pointes de Fasad » révèle que ce type est à la fois trans-chronologique et de morphométrie différente suivant les régions d'Arabie. Les découvertes archéologiques dans l'abri d'al-Hatab, dans le Dhofar (Oman), contredisent le scénario d'une origine levantine, démontrant l'existence d'une occupation indigène qui possédait une technologie laminaire et des pointes pédonculées, et qui précédait « l'expansion levantine » de plusieurs millénaires. Dans cet article, nous utilisons l'assemblage lithique d'al-Hatab pour définir une nouvelle industrie au sein du Paléolithique récent d'Arabie du Sud, qui se développe localement et appelée le Hatabien. Les vestiges provenant d'al-Hatab, ainsi que les données génétiques, suggèrent que des groupes en Arabie du Sud ont perduré sur place depuis le Paléolithique récent, il y a 10 000 à 15 000 ans.

The seeming lack of evidence for a Palaeolithic presence in Qatar has been enigmatic. This has now changed. Here we report on discoveries made by the PADMAC Unit during 2013/2014 and the far-reaching implications of these findings. Our preliminary analysis of the Qatar lithic assemblages — QSS25, QSS29 (PADMAC Unit collection) and A-group Site I and A-group Site III (Kapel collection) — revealed the presence of large chopping tools and crude ‘Abbevillian’ cores, both indicative of an early stage within the lower Palaeolithic period, while the absence of classic Acheulean hand axes might even suggest a date exceeding one million years. Furthermore, the particular suite of technological traits we identified in Umm Taqa ‘B-group’ Site XXXIV (Kapel collection) lithic assemblage, are characteristic of middle–upper Palaeolithic transitional industries found in the Levant, Nile Valley, and southern Arabia. Hence, we tentatively assign the ‘Taqan’ industry to the upper Palaeolithic. Specific lithics from the QSS32 (PADMAC Unit collection) assemblage, allude to further ‘Taqan’ sites in southern Qatar.

Archaeological, geoarchaeological and geochronological research at the Terminal Pleistocene/Early Holocene
sites of al-Hatab, Ghazal and Khamseen Rockshelters help to elucidate our understanding of the
Late Palaeolithic occupation of the South Arabian Highlands. The stone tools found at these sites are
attributed to the Nejd Leptolithic tradition; an autochthonous lithic culture found across Dhofar (Oman).
The artifact-bearing deposits excavated within these rockshelters have been chronologically constrained
by optically stimulated luminescence dating, while sedimentological analyses help to establish site
formation processes. Together, these methods provide a chronological anchor for some Nejd Leptolithic
archaeological findspots across Dhofar. The archaeological evidence from surface and stratified sites
indicates a technological continuum across the shifting climatic regimes of the Terminal Pleistocene/
Early Holocene. This technological continuity points to possible population persistence within one of the
posited South Arabian refugia.

Beginning some 50 thousand years ago, a technological transition spread across the Near East and into Eurasia, in the most general terms characterized by a shift from preferential, prepared core reduction systems to the serial production of elongated points via opposed platform cores. The earliest known occurrence of such a technological shift is the Emiran Industry, whose oldest manifestations are found in the southern Levant. The cultural and demographic source(s) of this industry, however, remain unresolved.
Looking to archaeogenetic research, the emerging picture indicates a major dispersal of our species out of Africa between 100 and 50 thousand years ago. Ancient DNA evidence points to low levels of admixture between Neanderthal and pioneering modern human populations in the Near East. These propositions underscore the significance of the Emiran and beg a reassessment of its origins. In this paper, we ask whether the Emiran was a local development, a cultural/demographic replacement, or the fusion of indigenous and exogenous lithic traditions. Our analysis considers the techno-typological features of the Emiran in relation to late Middle Palaeolithic and contemporaneous assemblages from adjacent territories in northeast Africa and the Arabian Peninsula, in order to identify overlapping cultural features and potential antecedents. Parsi- monious with the archaeogenetic scenario of admixture, the Emiran seems to represent a fusion of local southern Levantine Mousterian tool types with the Afro-Arabian Nubian Levallois reduction strategy. We propose that Emiran technology is primarily rooted in the Early Nubian Complex of the Nile Valley, which spread onto the Arabian Peninsula during the Last Interglacial and developed at the interface of northern Arabia and the southern Levant between 100 and 50 thousand years ago.

Climatic changes in Arabia are of critical importance to our understanding of both monsoon variability and the dispersal of anatomically modern humans (AMH) out of Africa. The timing of dispersal is associated with the occurrence of pluvial periods during Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 5 (ca. 130e74 ka), after which arid conditions between ca. 74 and 10.5 ka are thought to have restricted further migra- tion and range expansion within the Arabian interior. Whilst a number of records indicate that this phase of aridity was punctuated by an increase in monsoon strength during MIS 3, uncertainties regarding the precision of terrestrial records and suitability of marine archives as records of precipitation, mean that the occurrence of this pluvial remains debated. Here we present evidence from a series of relict lake deposits within southeastern Arabia, which formed at the onset of MIS 3 (ca. 61e58 ka). At this time, the incursion of monsoon rainfall into the Arabian interior activated a network of channels associated with an alluvial fan system along the western flanks of the Hajar Mountains, leading to lake formation. Multiproxy evidence indicates that precipitation increases intermittently recharged fluvial systems within the region, leading to lake expansion in distal fan zones. Conversely, decreased precipitation led to reduced channel flow, lake contraction and a shift to saline conditions. These findings are in contrast to the many other palaeoclimatic records from Arabia, which suggest that during MIS 3, the latitudinal position of the monsoon was substantially further south and did not penetrate the peninsula. Addi- tionally, the occurrence of increased rainfall at this time challenges the notion that the climate of Arabia following MIS 5 was too harsh to permit the further range expansion of indigenous communities.

Between 2010 and 2012, the Dhofar Archaeological Project has located and mapped 260 Nubian Complex occurrences across Dhofar, southern Oman. Many of these lithic assemblages are technolog- ically homologous to the Late Nubian Industry found in Africa, while others may represent a local industry derived from classic Nubian Levallois technology. The purpose of this paper is to describe the various reduction strategies encountered at a sample of Nubian Complex sites from Dhofar, to explore inter-assemblage variability, and, ultimately, to begin to articulate technological units within the “Dhofar Nubian Tradition.” To achieve this aim, we have developed an analytical scheme with which to describe variability among Nubian Levallois reduction strategies. From our analysis, we are able to discern at least two distinct industries within a regional lithic tradition. Demographic implications of the enduring Dhofar Nubian Tradition are considered in light of new evidence found throughout the Arabian Peninsula.

It is now known that several population movements have taken place at different times through- out southern Arabian prehistory. One of the principal questions under debate is if the Early Holocene peopling of southern Arabia was mainly due to input from the Le- vant during the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B, to the expansion of an autochthonous population, or some combination of these demographic processes. Since previous genetic stud- ies have not been able to include all parts of southern Arabia, we have helped fill this lacuna by collecting new population datasets from Oman (Dhofar) and Yemen (Al- Mahra and Bab el-Mandab). We identified several new haplotypes belonging to haplogroup R2 and generated its whole genome mtDNA tree with age estimates under- taken by different methods. R2, together with other considerably frequent southern Arabian mtDNA haplogroups (R0a, HV1, summing up more than 20% of the South Ara- bian gene pool) were used to infer the past effective popu- lation size through Bayesian skyline plots. These data indicate that the southern Arabian population underwent a large expansion already some 12 ka. A founder analysis of these haplogroups shows that this expansion is largely attributed to demographic input from the Near East. These results support thus the spread of a population coming from the north, but at a significantly earlier date than presently considered by archaeologists. Our data suggest that some of the mtDNA lineages found in south- ern Arabia have persisted in the region since the end of the Last Ice Age.

Systematic surveys conducted in the Dhofar Governorate of Oman have produced over 300 surface sites, as well as excavation of in situ archaeological deposits. A number of these assemblages have been classified as part of the Nejd Leptolithic Tradition (NLT). This study describes a selection of these assemblages from sites distributed across the southern and central Najd plateau in Dhofar, including both surface scatters and stratified rock shelters. The NLT is broadly characterized by the reduction of blades struck from single-platform cores with flat flaking surfaces, in conjunction with the façonnage manufacture of bifacial implements. Based on technological analysis and artefact conjoins, we distinguish three separate core reduction strategies within the NLT. Optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dates from three in situ assemblages allow us to begin to define temporal variability within this technological continuum.

Despite the numerous studies proposing early human population expansions from Africa into Arabia during the Late Pleistocene, no archaeological sites have yet been discovered in Arabia that resemble a specific African industry, which would indicate demographic exchange across the Red Sea. Here we report the discovery of a buried site and more than 100 new surface scatters in the Dhofar region of Oman belonging to a regionally-specific African lithic industry - the late Nubian Complex - known previously only from the northeast and Horn of Africa during Marine Isotope Stage 5, ,128,000 to 74,000 years ago. Two optically stimulated luminescence age estimates from the open-air site of Aybut Al Auwal in Oman place the Arabian Nubian Complex at ,106,000 years ago, providing archaeological evidence for the presence of a distinct northeast African Middle Stone Age technocomplex in southern Arabia sometime in the first half of Marine Isotope Stage 5.

تشير الدلائل إلى أن انسان ما قبل التاريخ كان قادراً على البقاء على قيد الحياة خلال فترات التغيرات المناخية شديدة الجفاف وذلك بلجوئه إلى الشواطئ الساحلية من شبه الجزيرة. تستعرض هذه الورقة دلائل جديدة حول البيئة القديمة والآثار والوراثة في شبه الجزيرة العربية وجنوب إيران لاستكشاف إمكانية وجود ملاجئ بشرية فيما أطلق عليه اسم "واحة الخليج" (Gulf Oasis)، والتي افترض أنها كانت منطقة اقامة حيوية كبيرة للسكان في جنوب غرب آسيا خلال عصر البلايستوسين المتأخر (Late Pleistocene)• وعصر الهولوسين المبكر (Early Holocene)•. استخدمت هذه البيانات لتقييم دور هذه الواحة الكبيرة، والتي كانت قبل أن تغمرها مياه المحيط الهندي، تتغذى من مياه انهار دجلة والفرات، وكارون•، ووادي الباطن وكذلك من طبقات المياه الجوفية التي تتدفق تحت شبه القارة العربية. وكانعكاس لتراجع كمية الأمطار السنوية التي تهطل في جميع الأنحاء الداخلية، فإن انخفاض منسوب مياه البحر أدى إلى كشف أجزاء كبيرة من الخليج العربي، كانت بحجم بريطانيا في بعض الأحيان. لذلك، فعندما تجف المناطق النائية، يلجأ السكان إلى "واحة الخليج" لاستغلال ينابيع المياه العذبة والأنهار. ويعتقد أن هذه العلاقة الديناميكية بين تحسن البيئة/وجفافها من ناحية واستغلال البيئة/وهجرانها من ناحية أخرى دفعت بالتبادل السكاني من داخل وإلى خارج هذه المنطقة على مدار عصر البلايستوسين المتأخر وعصر الهولوسين المبكر، فضلاً عن أنها لعبت دوراً مهماً في تشكيل التطور الثقافي للسكان المحليين خلال تلك الفترة."