Rock art landscapes beside the Jubbah palaeolake, Saudi Arabia

Jennings, Richard; Shipton, Ceri; Al-Omari, Abdulaziz; Alsharekh, Abdullah; Crassard, Rémy; Groucutt, Huw S.; Petraglia, Michael D.

doi:10.1017/s0003598x00049383

Cited by 31 publications

(42 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…12) expands upon our previous findings, and further complements the suggestions we made there, that palaeohydrology within the region may have facilitated hominin dispersals. Middle Palaeolithic and Neolithic archaeology within the Nefud dunes at Jubbah during MIS 7, 5, and the Holocene Jennings et al, 2013;Crassard et al, 2013b) previously provided striking evidence for the accessibility of the area under humid conditions that has now been further complemented by the sites identified during this study associated with southern Nefud palaeolakes (Fig. 13.…”

Section: Example Of Regional Palaeohydrological Reconstruction For Spsupporting

confidence: 61%

“…A total of 32 new archaeological sites were identified within these basins (see Fig. 12 for sites in the Nefud/Shuwaymis region), ranging in period from the Lower Palaeolithic through to post-Neolithic funerary complexes and rock art (see Jennings et al, 2013) (Table 1). The majority of the sites identified within the detected basins were Palaeolithic surface scatters, with typo-technologically Middle Palaeolithic assemblages the most prevalent, often directly associated with the surface of gypcrete deposits detected by the classifier.…”

Section: Archaeological Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Remote sensing and GIS techniques for reconstructing Arabian palaeohydrology and identifying archaeological sites

Breeze

Drake

Groucutt

et al. 2015

Quaternary International

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a b s t r a c tFreshwater availability is critical for human survival, and in the Saharo-Arabian desert belt repeated fluctuations between aridity and humidity over the Quaternary mean the distribution of freshwater was likely a primary control upon routes and opportunities for hominin dispersals. However, our knowledge of the spatio-temporal distribution of palaeohydrological resources within Arabia during MideLate Pleistocene episodes of climatic amelioration remains limited. In this paper we outline a combined method for remotely mapping the location of palaeodrainage and palaeolakes in currently arid regions that were formerly subject to more humid conditions. We demonstrate the potential of this approach by mapping palaeochannels across the whole Arabian Peninsula, and palaeolakes and marshes for select regions covering c. 10% of its surface. Our palaeodrainage mapping is based upon quantitative thresholding of HydroSHEDs data, which applies flow routing to Digital Elevation Model (DEM) data, while our palaeolake mapping uses an innovative method where spectral classification of Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) imagery is used to detect palaeolake deposits within endorheic (closed) basins, before modelling maximum lake extents by flooding the basin to the level of the elevation of the highest detected deposit. Field survey in the Nefud desert and the Dawadmi and Shuwaymis regions of Saudi Arabia indicates accuracies of 86% for palaeodrainage mapping, and 96% for identifying former palaeolake basins (73% accuracy of classification of individual deposits). The palaeolake mapping method has also demonstrated potential for identifying surface and stratified archaeological site locations, with 76% of the surveyed palaeolake basins containing archaeological material, including stratified Palaeolithic archaeology. Initial examination of palaeodrainage in relation to archaeological sites indicates a relationship between mapped features and previously recorded Palaeolithic sites. An example of the application of these data for period-specific regional palaeohydrological and archaeological reconstructions is presented for a region of Northern Saudi Arabia covering the southern Nefud desert and adjacent lava fields.

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Section: Example Of Regional Palaeohydrological Reconstruction For Spsupporting

confidence: 61%

Section: Archaeological Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Remote sensing and GIS techniques for reconstructing Arabian palaeohydrology and identifying archaeological sites

Breeze

Drake

Groucutt

et al. 2015

Quaternary International

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107

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“…During the wettest phases of the Holocene and late Pleistocene, reactivation of these drainage systems may have meant that the Shuwaymis region was accessible by following hydrological systems along a broadly east-west belt stretching from the Red Sea to the Ad Dhana and, more tentatively (if interdune water sources or water storage allowed crossing of the dunes), potentially as far as the Arabian Gulf. Furthermore, c.5 km north of the Shuwaymis valley lies a further catchment divide, which if crossed and drainage is followed (with several subsequent short catchment divide crossings) connects to the southern Nefud, where further instances of rock art similar to that of Shuwaymis are known, such as the Jubbah rock-art complex (Khan 2007;Jennings et al 2013).…”

Section: Geology and Environmental Settingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Advances in geospatial survey techniques, increased availability of satellite and photographic imagery and the development of spatial datasets for mapping and analysis open up new possibilities for studying rock art and human behaviour in its wider environmental contexts, particularly in remote locations (e.g. McClure, Balaguer & Auban 2008; Aubry, Luis & Dimuccio 2013;Bourdier 2013;Jennings et al 2013;Olsen 2013). Such techniques have great potential to build on existing rock-art research in Saudi Arabia, which has traditionally focused on the interpretation of rock-art styles and inscriptions rather than on the systematic evaluation of rock-art panels from a landscape perspective (e.g.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In recognition of this fact, the Saudi General Commission for Tourism and Antiquities commissioned Oxford University's Palaeodeserts Project, a major multidisciplinary research project currently investigating links between Pleistocene and Holocene environmental change and human dispersals in the Arabian Peninsula, to undertake a detailed field survey of Shuwaymis-2 and to place the entire rockart locality in its wider geographical context. The Palaeodeserts team had undertaken a similar project in the Jubbah region in 2011, where the relationship between rock art, palaeolakes and prehistoric archaeological sites was explored (Crassard et al 2013;Jennings et al 2013). The location of Shuwaymis in relation to major wadi systems and to the Jubbah rock-art complex, a major location where the same style of Late Prehistoric art is found.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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High-resolution geospatial surveying techniques provide new insights into rock-art landscapes at Shuwaymis, Saudi Arabia

Jennings

Parton

Groucutt

et al. 2014

Arabian Archaeol Epigr

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Many parts of the Arabian Peninsula contain rock art that has received minimal archaeological attention or has not yet been thoroughly surveyed. In 2001 an extensive rock-art complex called Shuwaymis, Ha'il Province, Saudi Arabia was brought to the attention of the Saudi General Commission for Tourism and Antiquities. This paper sets out the results of the first high-resolution geospatial mapping and recording of rock art at this remote site. The research saw the innovative use of a differential GPS to record rock-art panels to within 5 mm of accuracy at the site of Shuwaymis-2, the first time that such technology has been used to record rock art in the Arabian Peninsula. With such technology it was possible to show which of eighty-three late prehistoric rock-art panels surveyed were in their original position and which had fallen, and to demonstrate that there was spatial homogeneity of rock-art styles and composition across the site. The mapping recorded multiple panels of cattle, ibex, equid, large cat and other animals. The depictions of lions and cattle in particular indicate that the rock art must have been engraved no later than the early Holocene humid phase (c.10-6 ka BP).

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20,000 years of societal vulnerability and adaptation to climate change in southwest Asia

et al. 2019

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The Fertile Crescent, its hilly flanks and surrounding drylands has been a critical region for studying how climate has influenced societal change, and this review focuses on the region over the last 20,000 years. The complex social, economic, and environmental landscapes in the region today are not new phenomena and understanding their interactions requires a nuanced, multidisciplinary understanding of the past. This review builds on a history of collaboration between the social and natural palaeoscience disciplines. We provide a multidisciplinary, multiscalar perspective on the relevance of past climate, environmental, and archaeological research in assessing present day vulnerabilities and risks for the populations of southwest Asia. We discuss the complexity of palaeoclimatic data interpretation, particularly in relation to hydrology, and provide an overview of key time periods of palaeoclimatic interest. We discuss the critical role that vegetation plays in the human–climate–environment nexus and discuss the implications of the available palaeoclimate and archaeological data, and their interpretation, for palaeonarratives of the region, both climatically and socially. We also provide an overview of how modelling can improve our understanding of past climate impacts and associated change in risk to societies. We conclude by looking to future work, and identify themes of “scale” and “seasonality” as still requiring further focus. We suggest that by appreciating a given locale's place in the regional hydroscape, be it an archaeological site or palaeoenvironmental archive, more robust links to climate can be made where appropriate and interpretations drawn will demand the resolution of factors acting across multiple scales. This article is categorized under: Human Water > Water as Imagined and Represented Science of Water > Water and Environmental Change Water and Life > Nature of Freshwater Ecosystems

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Rock art landscapes beside the Jubbah palaeolake, Saudi Arabia

Cited by 31 publications

References 17 publications

Remote sensing and GIS techniques for reconstructing Arabian palaeohydrology and identifying archaeological sites

Remote sensing and GIS techniques for reconstructing Arabian palaeohydrology and identifying archaeological sites

High-resolution geospatial surveying techniques provide new insights into rock-art landscapes at Shuwaymis, Saudi Arabia

20,000 years of societal vulnerability and adaptation to climate change in southwest Asia

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