New Light on Human Prehistory in the Arabo-Persian Gulf Oasis Author(s): Jeffrey I. Rose Reviewed work(s): Source: Current Anthropology, Vol. 51, No. 6 (December 2010), pp. 849-883 Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/657397 . Accessed: 13/07/2012 10:43 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. The University of Chicago Press and Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Current Anthropology. http://www.jstor.org Current Anthropology Volume 51, Number 6, December 2010 849 New Light on Human Prehistory in the Arabo-Persian Gulf Oasis by Jeffrey I. Rose The emerging picture of prehistoric Arabia suggests that early modern humans were able to survive periodic hyperarid oscillations by contracting into environmental refugia around the coastal margins of the peninsula. This paper reviews new paleoenvironmental, archaeological, and genetic evidence from the Arabian Peninsula and southern Iran to explore the possibility of a demographic refugium dubbed the “Gulf Oasis,” which is posited to have been a vitally significant zone for populations residing in southwest Asia during the Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene. These data are used to assess the role of this large oasis, which, before being submerged beneath the waters of the Indian Ocean, was well watered by the Tigris, Euphrates, Karun, and Wadi Batin rivers as well as subterranean aquifers flowing beneath the Arabian subcontinent. Inverse to the amount of annual precipitation falling across the interior, reduced sea levels periodically exposed large portions of the Arabo-Persian Gulf, equal at times to the size of Great Britain. Therefore, when the hinterlands were desiccated, populations could have contracted into the Gulf Oasis to exploit its freshwater springs and rivers. This dynamic relationship between environmental amelioration/desiccation and marine transgression/ regression is thought to have driven demographic exchange into and out of this zone over the course of the Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene, as well as having played an important role in shaping the cultural evolution of local human populations during that interval. ology (Caton-Thompson 1957; Petraglia and Alsharekh 2003; For Dilmun, the land of my lady’s heart, I will create long Rose 2004, 2006, 2007; Whalen, Davis, and Pease 1990). Such waterways, rivers and canals, whereby water will flow to studies are based on the supposition that South Arabia was quench the thirst of all beings and bring abundance to all an important conduit throughout the Pleistocene, facilitating that lives. (The promise of Enki the Lord of Sweet Waters the expansion and contraction of biota to and from East to Ninhursag the Earth Mother, from the Sumerian cre- Africa. Hence, the Paleolithic archaeological record of Arabia ation myth “Enki and Ninhursag”; Kramer 1945) can be used to assess the southern route of dispersal for Introduction: Out of Africa and Into populations expanding out of Africa. Arabia? Recent fieldwork conducted throughout the Arabian sub- continent indicates that human demography was far more complex than has been considered until now. Contrary to The investigation presented in this paper commences with expectations of a well-trodden Stone Age highway, new data the question of human expansion from Africa into Arabia collected by archaeologists working in Yemen (Crassard 2009; during the Late Pleistocene (128,000–12,000 BP). Scholars Delagnes et al. 2008; Fedele 2009), Oman (Jagher 2009; Rose often envision South Arabia as a population corridor, drawing and Usik 2009), and the United Arab Emirates (UAE; Marks on evidence from archaeozoology (Fernandes 2009; Tchernov 2009; Uerpmann, Potts, and Uerpmann 2009) suggest that 1992; Wildman et al. 2004), paleoanthropology (Lahr and parts of the peninsula may have served as population refugia, Foley 1994, 1998; Stringer 2000), human genetics (Kivisild et enabling indigenous hunter-gatherers to survive in localized al. 2004; Metspalu et al. 2004; Oppenheimer 2009; Quintana- pockets during periodic climatic downturns (Rose and Pe- Murci et al. 1999), computer modeling (Field, Petraglia, and traglia 2009). Far from finding East African–derived lithic Lahr 2007; Mithen and Reed 2002) and Paleolithic archae- technologies spilling over into Arabia, freshly unearthed evi- dence points to a conspicuous lack of connection with African Jeffrey I. Rose is a Research Fellow in the Institute of Archaeology lithic industries following the last interglacial (Rose and Usik and Antiquity at the University of Birmingham (Birmingham B15 2009). These industries tend to exhibit a distinct Arabian 2TT, United Kingdom [[email protected]]). This paper was tradition, suggesting minimal demographic input from out- submitted 16 III 09 and accepted 26 II 10. side the peninsula. Thus, it is germane to consider the pos- ᭧ 2010 by The Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research. All rights reserved. 0011-3204/2010/5106-0008$10.00. DOI: 10.1086/657397 850 Current Anthropology Volume 51, Number 6, December 2010 sibility that humans have continuously occupied parts of Ara- population. In suggesting autochthonous human groups that bia for the past 100,000 years, if not longer. survived outside of Africa from 128 kya onward, the proposed The Arabian subcontinent houses a mosaic of microenvi- model contradicts scenarios of modern human emergence ronments, some of which provided stable, predictable sources that envision a more recent expansion from Africa during of food and freshwater even during the most hyperarid phases marine isotope stage 4 (MIS 4), between 74 and 60 kya. of prehistory. At times when glacial conditions led to increased This new iteration of the old “oasis hypothesis” also offers aridity and widespread environmental degradation, reduced a novel perspective on the century-long discussion of Neo- sea levels exposed large portions of the continental shelf and lithization in southwest Asia (e.g., Bender 1975; Braidwood caused the formation of “coastal oases” fed by upwelling sub- 1973; Childe 1928; Flannery 1969, 1973; Pumpelly 1908; terranean springs (Faure, Walter, and Grant 2002). Taking Staubwasser and Weiss 2006), recently dubbed the “Neolithic into account the concentration of freshwater resources in demographic transition” (Bocquet-Appel 2008). The Gulf Oa- coastal and other low-lying areas, as well as annual rates of sis hypothesis proposes a heretofore undocumented indige- precipitation, figure 1 depicts three proposed refugia around nous community at the nexus of the ancient world, ground Arabia: (1) the Red Sea basin and ‘Asir-Yemeni highlands, (2) zero of the Agricultural and Urban revolutions. Not only does the southeast Arabian littoral zone, and (3) the exposed basin the proposed scenario introduce a new and substantial cast of the Arabo-Persian Gulf.1 of characters to southwest Asia at the critical Pleistocene- This paper focuses on prehistoric occupation within and Holocene boundary, it also supplies an ecologically driven around the Gulf Oasis, posited to have been the primary mechanism—fluctuating landscape carry capacity within an refugium in Arabia. For the purposes of this study, the Gulf isolated environment—that is thought to have played an im- Oasis is defined as the shallow inland basin that was exposed portant role in shaping cultural evolution throughout the throughout most of the Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene. region. It was bounded to the west by the sprawling deserts of the While the bulk of the archaeological record during the Arabian Peninsula, to the east by the towering peaks of the Terminal Pleistocene and Early Holocene lies submerged be- Zagros mountain range, and to the north by the Mesopota- neath the waters of the Arabo-Persian Gulf, there are more mian floodplain. From 74,000 BP to the final incursion of than 60 archaeological sites that suddenly appear along the the Indian Ocean around 8000 BP, the Gulf Oasis formed the newly established Middle Holocene shoreline, which evidence southern tip of the “Fertile Crescent” (sensu Breasted 1916). a prospering Neolithic population practicing a combination This presently inundated zone was once a low-lying floodplain of fishing, date palm cultivation, and animal husbandry. Be- beginning at the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers fore the appearance of these sedentary/semisedentary villages, in Mesopotamia, the Karun River draining off the Iranian the few known Early Holocene archaeological sites in the Plateau, and the Wadi Batin River flowing across northern region were characterized by sparse and ephemeral hunter- Arabia. Together, these systems joined together into the Ur- gatherer camp sites scattered along the coast. The Gulf Oasis Schatt River Valley. Further downstream, the Ur-Schatt was model envisages that the wave of Middle Holocene settlements derive from an indigenous population displaced by the ad- fed by additional