A tale of two hearth sites: Neolithic and intermittent mid to late Holocene occupations in the Jubbah oasis, northern Saudi Arabia

Following the herds? A new distribution of hunting kites in Southwest Asia

“…This is particularly distinct in the Al Labbah plateau, where there is little evidence of any structural forms that could relate to settlement or funerary activity, and we can conjecture that the builders of these kites dwelt in temporary, organic material structures that have left no trace visible on current satellite imagery data. Similar, structure-less, highly mobile lifestyles have also been documented in the Jubbah oasis, in the Arabian interior and along the Gulf coast (Guagnin et al, 2021).…”

“…In the Arabian Peninsula, livestock are thought to have been introduced between 6800 and 6200 BCE (Drechsler, 2009). However, in northern Saudi Arabia earliest faunal remains of livestock (cattle, sheep and goat) so far date to the late sixth millennium BC, and are frequently found alongside gazelle remains (Groucutt et al, 2020;Guagnin et al, 2017bGuagnin et al, , 2021Munoz et al, 2020;Scerri et al, 2018;Thomas et al, 2021). The rock art of the region suggests that hunting continued alongside herding until the recent past (Guagnin et al, 2017a) and it is currently not clear to what extent groups of hunters may also have lived alongside pastoralist herder/hunters in the Neolithic of northern Arabia.…”

Taphonomy of an excavated striped hyena (Hyaena hyaena) den in Arabia: implications for paleoecology and prehistory

“…Very little remains known about the paleoecology and prehistory of northern Arabia, and this is, in no small part, due to the exceptionally scant fossil record. For instance, fossil evidence consistent with pastoralism in northern Arabia is restricted to just a few sites comprising very limited and/or fragmentary remains (Guagnin et al 2017(Guagnin et al 2021Scerri et al 2018;Groucutt et al 2020;Munoz et al 2020;Thomas et al 2021). In light of this, researchers have turned to the rock art record, the results of which have been illuminating (e.g., Guagnin et al 2015Guagnin et al 2018Guagnin et al 2020.…”

“…In fact, very little is known about the Holocene paleoecology of northern Arabia (Petraglia et al 2020) and this is, in no small part, due to the extremely scant fossil record of the region. For example, in the Nefud Desert-an important region for understanding the Neolithization of northern Arabia-only four early-to mid-Holocene sites have yielded faunal remains (Guagnin et al 2017(Guagnin et al 2021Scerri et al 2018;Groucutt et al 2020). Moreover, the faunal material from these sites is extremely fragmentary, providing very little taxonomic insight.…”

“…Moreover, the faunal material from these sites is extremely fragmentary, providing very little taxonomic insight. At the ORF2 site at Jebel Oraf, for example, of the > 1800 recovered bone and tooth fragments, only 14 were identifiable to taxon (Guagnin et al 2021).…”