Many parts of the Arabian Peninsula contain rock art that has received minimal archaeological attention or has not yet been thoroughly surveyed. In 2001 an extensive rock-art complex called Shuwaymis, Ha'il Province, Saudi Arabia was brought to the attention of the Saudi General Commission for Tourism and Antiquities. This paper sets out the results of the first high-resolution geospatial mapping and recording of rock art at this remote site. The research saw the innovative use of a differential GPS to record rock-art panels to within 5 mm of accuracy at the site of Shuwaymis-2, the first time that such technology has been used to record rock art in the Arabian Peninsula. With such technology it was possible to show which of eighty-three late prehistoric rock-art panels surveyed were in their original position and which had fallen, and to demonstrate that there was spatial homogeneity of rock-art styles and composition across the site. The mapping recorded multiple panels of cattle, ibex, equid, large cat and other animals. The depictions of lions and cattle in particular indicate that the rock art must have been engraved no later than the early Holocene humid phase (c.10–6 ka BP).
<p>Large (1-50 km), coalescing alluvial fan systems extend eastwards from Hajar Mountain catchments to the Batinah Coast of northern Oman, representing an important environment for both sediment transfer and storage. As sediment stores, these alluvial fans have great potential to act as archives of Quaternary palaeohydrological changes in their mountain catchments. This has been shown by work carried out on interior draining fans west of the Hajar (e.g. Blechschmidt et al., 2009; Parton et al., 2013, 2015), which has highlighted the sensitivity of fan systems to periods of intensified Indian Ocean Summer Monsoon (IOSM) rainfall. However, the timing of fluvial activity and fan aggradation on the east of the Hajar Mountains is currently poorly constrained due to limited quantitative geochronology. This is, in part, due to the difficulty of dating Batinah alluvial sediments using luminescence techniques because of their low quartz abundances (Hoffmann et al., 2015).</p><p>This study presents new Mid-Late Pleistocene OSL ages from alluvial sediments exposed by incised channel systems in fan-head trenches in the lower reaches of the catchment and one section near the apex of the Rustaq fan. Ages from the upper fan represent the first dates on unconfined fan deposition from the Batinah Coast. The depositional contexts of ages are important for understanding the nature of fan dynamics over time. However, ages will also be considered in the context of regional palaeoenvironmental records to investigate the role of IOSM variability in landscape evolution on the Batinah Coast.&#160;&#160;</p><p><strong>References</strong></p><p>Blechschmidt, I., Matter, A., Preusser, F. and Rieke-Zapp, D., 2009. Monsoon triggered formation of Quaternary alluvial megafans in the interior of Oman.&#160;<em>Geomorphology</em>,&#160;<em>110</em>(3-4), pp.128-139.</p><p>Hoffmann, G., Rupprechter, M., Rahn, M. and Preusser, F., 2015. Fluvio-lacustrine deposits reveal precipitation pattern in SE Arabia during early MIS 3.&#160;<em>Quaternary International</em>,&#160;<em>382</em>, pp.145-153.</p><p>Parton, A., Farrant, A.R., Leng, M.J., Schwenninger, J.L., Rose, J.I., Uerpmann, H.P. and Parker, A.G., 2013. An early MIS 3 pluvial phase in Southeast Arabia: climatic and archaeological implications.&#160;<em>Quaternary International</em>,&#160;<em>300</em>, pp.62-74.</p><p>Parton, A., Farrant, A.R., Leng, M.J., Telfer, M.W., Groucutt, H.S., Petraglia, M.D. and Parker, A.G., 2015. Alluvial fan records from southeast Arabia reveal multiple windows for human dispersal.&#160;<em>Geology</em>,&#160;<em>43</em>(4), pp.295-298.</p>
Mountain-front fans are an important part of the global sediment system, acting as buffers and stores of sediment between upland sources and down-system sinks. Fans emanate from the Hajar Mountains in the eastern UAE and northern Oman which have developed from morphologically and geologically variable catchments and in a range of depositional settings, as well as spanning a wide range of shapes and sizes. There has been little prior research into the drivers of regional fan evolution and morphology at the landform scale, considering specific factors such as source-area morphology and geology and distal settings. We use remotely sensed data to map 438 fans and catchments along mountain fronts in Oman and the UAE. These data provide, for the first time, a regional overview of fan morphology using key morphometric parameters and demonstrate the utility of a remote sensing approach to understanding regional landform morphology of features at a range of spatial scales (10−3-104 km2). Comparing this large dataset to studies of dryland fans globally, we show that Hajar fan morphology spans almost every order of magnitude previously recorded elsewhere. It shows statistically the importance of diverse catchment and depositional setting controls on alluvial fan morphology. Across the different mountain fronts of the Hajar range, fan morphology is controlled by 1) catchment morphology and geology, 2) changes in base level and 3) long-term climatic changes and tectonic processes, although the importance of these factors relative to one another is highly spatially variable. The fans of the Musandam Peninsula drain younger rocks, are situated in an area of subsidence and have experienced foreshortening due to Quaternary sea-level variability, hence produce the smallest, steepest fans. Similarly, many of the fans of the Batinah Coast are influenced by distal foreshortening by sea-level rise and demonstrate weak regression relationships with their catchment morphologies. By contrast, the large fans of the Rub'al Khali are mostly distally unconfined and drain large catchments composed of relatively older rock types, thus producing large fans and megafans with the strongest fan-catchment morphometric relationships. The Wahiba Sands fans are similar to those of the Rub'al Khali but are limited in their extent by erosion from an axial river system. As such, the fans of the Hajar are an important natural laboratory for investigating alluvial fan morphology, processes and long-term evolution in response to a range of controls. This includes potentially acting as analogues to extra-terrestrial fan systems due to their large scales in some areas dryland context. For example, the largest megafans of the Hajar display morphometric similarities to large fluvial fans reported on Saturn's moon, Titan, perhaps suggesting comparable long-term controls.
Abstract Pleistocene hominin dispersals out of, and back into, Africa necessarily involved traversing the diverse and often challenging environments of Southwest Asia 1–4 . Archaeological and palaeontological records from the Levantine woodland zone document major biological and cultural shifts, such as alternating occupations by Homo sapiens and Neanderthals. However, Late Quaternary cultural, biological and environmental records from the vast arid zone that constitutes most of Southwest Asia remain scarce, limiting regional-scale insights into changes in hominin demography and behaviour 1,2,5 . Here we report a series of dated palaeolake sequences, associated with stone tool assemblages and vertebrate fossils, from the Khall Amayshan 4 and Jubbah basins in the Nefud Desert. These findings, including the oldest dated hominin occupations in Arabia, reveal at least five hominin expansions into the Arabian interior, coinciding with brief ‘green’ windows of reduced aridity approximately 400, 300, 200, 130–75 and 55 thousand years ago. Each occupation phase is characterized by a distinct form of material culture, indicating colonization by diverse hominin groups, and a lack of long-term Southwest Asian population continuity. Within a general pattern of African and Eurasian hominin groups being separated by Pleistocene Saharo-Arabian aridity, our findings reveal the tempo and character of climatically modulated windows for dispersal and admixture.
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.
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