Interglacial and glacial desert refugia and the Middle Paleolithic of the Azraq Oasis, Jordan

Córdova, Carlos E.; Nowell, April; Bisson, Michael S.; Ames, Christopher; Pokines, James T.; Chang, Melanie; al-Nahar, Maysoon

doi:10.1016/j.quaint.2012.09.019

Cited by 51 publications

(48 citation statements)

References 45 publications

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“…This period also coincides with a phase of increased westerly derived rainfall (e.g. Schuldenrein and Clark, ; Moumani et al , ; Vaks et al , ; Cordova et al , ). The monsoonal changes are linked to a period of maximum insolation, with a peak at ∼55 ka.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 89%

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

Jennings

Parton

Clark-Balzan

et al. 2016

J Quaternary Science

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The early part of Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 3 (c. 60-50 ka) is a crucial period for studying human demography and behaviour in Southwest Asia, and how these relate to climatic changes. However, the archaeological and palaeoenvironmental records for MIS 3 in critical areas such as the Arabian Peninsula remain poorly developed. Here, we present findings from the Al Marrat basin in the Nefud desert, which provides the first clear evidence for both increased humidity and human occupation of the interior of northern Arabia during early MIS 3. A Middle Palaeolithic assemblage, dated by OSL to c. 55 ka, was found stratified within a sequence of relict palustrine deposits indicative of shallow water body formation in the Al Marrat basin. Hominin presence in northern Arabia at this time coincides with the intensification and northward displacement of monsoon rainfall systems during a period of maximum insolation. These findings add to a growing corpus of palaeoenvironmental evidence, which indicates that the Arabian interior was neither arid nor unpopulated during early MIS 3, and that hydrodynamic responses to enhanced moisture availability facilitated demographic expansions into the Arabian interior.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 89%

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

Jennings

Parton

Clark-Balzan

et al. 2016

J Quaternary Science

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“…In addition, this work provides more information for an emerging picture of environmental change within the wider Azraq Basin through the late Quaternary (e.g. Jones and Richter, 2011;Cordova et al, 2013;Ames et al, 2014) that improves our understanding of regional environmental and climatic change throughout the Pleistocene and Holocene.…”

Section: Kharaneh IVmentioning

confidence: 96%

The environmental setting of Epipalaeolithic aggregation site Kharaneh IV

Jones

Maher

Macdonald

et al. 2016

Quaternary International

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a b s t r a c tThe archaeological site of Kharaneh IV in Jordan's Azraq Basin, and its relatively near neighbour Jilat 6 show evidence of sustained occupation of substantial size through the Early to Middle Epipalaeolithic (c. 24,000e15,000 cal BP). Here, we review the geomorphological evidence for the environmental setting in which Kharaneh IV was established. The on-site stratigraphy is clearly differentiated from surrounding sediments, marked visually as well as by higher magnetic susceptibility values. Dating and analysis of offsite sediments show that a significant wetland existed at the site prior to and during early site occupation (~23,000e19,000 BP). This may explain why such a substantial site existed at this location. This wetland dating to the Last Glacial Maximum also provides important information on the palaeoenvironments and potential palaeoclimatic scenarios for today's eastern Jordanian desert, from where such evidence is scarce.

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“…In between periods of moisture and hyper-aridity peaks, the Arabian populations endured a series of climate and environmental degradations which may have resulted in contractions of settlements into environmental refugia (Bailey, 2009;Rose and Petraglia, 2009;Rose, 2010). This environmental refugia model is prominent in the literature relating to the East African Middle Stone Age (Clark, 1989;Lahr and Foley, 1994;Ambrose, 1998;Basell, 2008), and is discussed in the context of the Azraq Basin in Jordan by Cordova et al (2013), but remains largely theoretical in the Arabian Peninsula during MIS 5, due the lack of chronological and environmental data from stratified archaeological contexts.…”

Section: Mis 5 Inter-regional Expansionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cultural and human dynamics in southern Arabia at the end of the Middle Paleolithic

Delagnes

Crassard

Bertrán

et al. 2013

Quaternary International

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a b s t r a c tThe Arabian Peninsula has long been considered as a region devoid of long-term human settlement until the Holocene period, as a result of drastic climatic changes throughout the Pleistocene. It might be expected that the area was deserted during hyper-arid and arid periods, and populated by new migrant groups during humid events, according to a "push and pull" phenomenon. Although this scenario may be perfectly valid for a large part of the Peninsula, a set of recent data points to the persistence of populations in several regions, which may have served as refugia for human groups who developed their own technological traditions. Such a scenario is suggested by:(1) The succession of dense human occupations under arid conditions between ca. 60 and 50 ka, in the Wadi Surdud basin, a small sedimentary basin in the foothills of the Yemeni Western Highlands. This archaeological site complex encompasses several successive human settlements characterized by a Middle Paleolithic tradition which significantly differs from the Middle Paleolithic and Middle Stone Age contemporaneous traditions from neighboring regions; (2) The regional diversity of the Middle Paleolithic throughout the Saharo-Arabian arid belt during MIS 3, expressed by an array of local techno-typological facies that likely relate to distant and disconnected source regions where populations contracted when climate worsened.Together with a set of high-resolution archaeological contexts recently discovered in the Arabian Peninsula and dated to MIS 5, these data suggest that the major human expansion waves which occurred in the region during the Upper Pleistocene are correlated with the wet phases of MIS 5, while populations probably contracted into a few refugia areas at the beginning of MIS 3.

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Interglacial and glacial desert refugia and the Middle Paleolithic of the Azraq Oasis, Jordan

Cited by 51 publications

References 45 publications

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

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

The environmental setting of Epipalaeolithic aggregation site Kharaneh IV

Cultural and human dynamics in southern Arabia at the end of the Middle Paleolithic

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