Arabia’s Underground Archives: Discovering History in Dryland Caves and Lava Tubes

Abstract

In recent years, archaeological research has spotlighted the key role that the deserts of Southwest Asia played in the emergence of the Neolithic. While discussions regarding Neolithization have traditionally centred on the Fertile Crescent, recent research points to key cultural developments in the arid regions to the south and east. Here, the Neolithic took on a unique form with subsistence economies centred around highly mobile cattle and caprid herding supplemented with hunting, foraging, and trading. This period also saw a drastic rise in anthropogenic impacts on dryland ecosystems, including a reduction in landscape stability and increased desertification. 
Despite these recent progresses, our understanding of the region remains constrained by the limited available palaeobiological and palaeoenvironmental records, particularly when contrasted to neighbouring areas like the Levant and eastern Africa where conditions for the preservation of organic materials are much more favourable. There is therefore a desperate need to locate settings in these dryland ecosystems conducive to the preservation of organics. Here, we report on our preliminary work on caves and lava tubes from three regions—Harrat Khaybar and As Sulb Plateau in Saudi Arabia, and Harrat al-Sham in eastern Jordan. Although these sites have long been known, none have been subjected to systematic archaeological survey or investigation. Our pilot work revealed that these protected cave sites contain copious amounts of exceptionally preserved faunal remains, cultural materials, and deeply stratified sediments dating as far back as Neolithic. Caves and lava tubes in drylands therefore have tremendous potential to fill in the large gaps in palaeobiological data in a region where the preservation of organic materials is otherwise remarkably poor.

About the Presenter

Dr Mathew Stewart is a Research Fellow in the Australian Research Centre for Human Evolution (ARCHE), Griffith University. He combines traditional archaeological and zooarchaeological research with innovative biogeochemical (e.g., stable isotopes) and biomolecular (e.g., palaeoproteomics) approaches to study human-animal-environment interactions in the past, with a particular focus on dryland regions.