Human occupation of the Arabian Empty Quarter during MIS 5: evidence from Mundafan Al-Buhayrah, Saudi Arabia

Abstract

International audienceThe Empty Quarter (or Rub' al Khali) of the Arabian Peninsula is the largest continuous sandy desert in the world. It has been known for several decades that Late Pleistocene and Holocene deposits, representing phases of wetter climate, are preserved there. These sequences have yielded palaeontological evidence in the form of a variety of vertebrate and invertebrate fossils and have been dated using various radiometric techniques. However, evidence for human presence during these wetter phases has until now been ephemeral. Here, we report on the first stratified and dated archaeology from the Empty Quarter, recovered from the site of Mundafan Al-Buhayrah (MDF-61). Human occupation at the site, represented by stone tools, has been dated to the later part of Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 5 using multiple luminescence dating techniques (multigrain and single grain OSL, TT-OSL). The sequence consists primarily of lacustrine and palustrine sediments, from which evidence for changing local environmental conditions has been obtained through analysis of fossil assemblages (phytoliths and non-marine molluscs and ostracods). The discovery of securely-dated archaeological material at ∼100 to 80 ka in the Empty Quarter has important implications for hypotheses concerning the timing and routes of dispersal of Homo sapiens out of Africa, which have been much debated. Consequently, the data presented here fill a crucial gap in palaeoenvironmental and archaeological understanding of the southern Arabian interior. Fossils of H. sapiens in the Levant, also dated to MIS 5, together with Middle Palaeolithic archaeological sites in Arabia and India are thought to represent the earliest dispersal of our species out of Africa. We suggest that the widespread occurrence of similar lithic technologies across southern Asia, coupled with a growing body of evidence for environmental amelioration across the Saharo-Arabian belt, indicates that occupation of the Levant by H. sapiens during MIS 5 may not have been a brief, localized ‘failed dispersal’, but part of a wider demographic expansion

Human occupation of the northern Arabian interior during early Marine Isotope Stage 3

“…There is no clear agreement between different authors about which values are most likely to represent well‐bleached samples (cf. Groucutt et al ., ; Rosenberg et al , ; Armitage et al , ). For these samples, both populations are weakly positively skewed (Fig.…”

“…Saturated grains were noted for both samples, and a maximum of 15% of accepted grains (ALM3‐OSL3) were excluded due to saturation. These single grain characteristics are similar to those reported by multiple studies for quartz from the Arabian peninsula, with 86–92% of grains rejected due to low signal intensity and 1–4% accepted for age calculation (Armitage et al ., ; Petraglia et al , ; Groucutt et al , ). Overdispersion values measured for single grain populations (30.7 ± 5.6 and 45.7 ± 8.1%) are also typical for deposits in the Arabian peninsula.…”

“…A field survey of the basin was undertaken to record archaeological sites and investigate the nature of the large areas of detected palaeolake deposits, many of which were found to be preserved as inverted relief features (IRFs). These features are low‐relief mounds which have often been found to preserve palaeoenvironmental and archaeological evidence elsewhere in Arabia (Petraglia et al , ; Hilbert et al , ; Groucutt et al , ,). During this survey, the IRF at ALM 3, which measures 18 m × 14 m with a height of 1.3 m, was identified, excavated and sampled for various palaeoenvironmental analyses.…”

“…Samples for phytolith analysis were prepared using the methodology outlined in Parker et al (2011). The lithic assemblage was analysed using the methods outlined in Scerri et al (2015) and Groucutt et al (2015c).…”

“…There is, however, increasing climatic evidence for a pluvial episode during early MIS 3. Although this pluvial was not as prolonged or intense as previous humid phases such as those of MIS 5, the period in which human populations are thought to have first expanded into the region (Petraglia et al , ; Groucutt et al, ,, Jennings et al , ; Parton et al , ), the hydrological effects would still have been wide‐ranging. In Oman and the UAE, the activation of drainage systems is recorded at ca .…”