Arabian, Peninsula, Oman, Desert

Modern Humans Arabia Dhofar

 Modern humans first arose about 200,000 years ago in Africa. When and how our lineage then dispersed has long proven controversial, but geneticists have suggested this exodus started between 40,000 and 70,000 years ago.

The currently accepted theory is that the exodus from Africa traced Arabia's shores, rather than passing through its now-arid interior. However, stone artifacts at least 100,000 years old from the Arabian Desert, revealed in January 2011, hinted that modern humans might have begun our march across the globe earlier than once suspected.

Now, more-than-100 newly discovered sites in the Sultanate of Oman apparently confirm that modern humans left Africa through Arabia long before genetic evidence suggests.
Oddly, these sites are located far inland, away from the coasts."After a decade of searching in southern Arabia for some clue that might help us understand early human expansion, at long last we've found the smoking gun of their exit from Africa," said lead researcher Jeffrey Rose, a paleolithic archaeologist at the University of Birmingham in England. Oddly, these sites are located far inland, away from the coasts."

After a decade of searching in southern Arabia for some clue that might help us understand early human expansion, at long last we've found the smoking gun of their exit from Africa," said lead researcher Jeffrey Rose, a paleolithic archaeologist at the University of Birmingham in England. The exception is a number of lithic scatters on interdunal gravels and at the edges of ancient palaeolakes recorded by geological surveyors in the early 1970s (Pullar 1974). These assemblages have been the fodder for considerable debate. Initially misclassified as North African Aterian (McClure 1994) and Levantine Pre-Pottery Neolithic (e.g. Dreschler 2007), recent work has shown that they belong to the ‘Nejd Leptolithic’ tradition. 

A local facies dated to between c. 13 000 and 7000 years ago (Hilbert et al. 2012; Charpentier & Crassard 2013). During winter 2012, the Ministry of Heritage and Culture in Oman commissioned an expedition to Ramlat Fasad, near the modern village of al-Hashman. In the southern Rub’ al-Khali, Governorate of Dhofar, to further assess the temporal and geographical extent of past human habitation in this region. By 75,000 years ago stone and bone pendants, shell ornaments and ostrich shell beads were widely exchanged throughout Africa.

Included in grave goods, suggesting that by this time people consistently used apparently valueless objects to communicate identity, relationships and spiritual bonds. In other words, to signal social rank, establish regional and personal relations with others and elaborate the rites of passage.
"What makes this so exciting is that the answer is a scenario almost never considered." The archaeology of the Rub’ al-Khali desert in Dhofar, southern Oman, is virtually unknown.




Archaeologist : Jeffrey Rose