Full bibliography

Since 2008, the Arabian Human Social Dynamics (AHSD) and Ancient Socioecological systems in Oman (ASOM) projects have been investigating the relationship between the construction of small-scale stone monuments, evidence of human settlement, and the long-term socio-ecological dynamics of past pastoral ecosystems in Southern Arabia. These are archaeological cultures with few material remains, strongly suggestive of sustained mobility and organic, perishable toolkits and crafts. A spectacular find, such as the accessories of Ötzi the Iceman or the Urumqi mummies of the Tarim basin, can draw public attention and archaeological focus to such communities, but for the most part, the lifestyles, identities, and beliefs of Bedouin cultures of Arabia and the Sahara leave few permanent traces. It has been easy to think theirs a timeless lifestyle, what Eric Wolf famously pilloried as “People without History.” Leaving aside for the moment the new discovery that the alphabetic Dhofar script can now be read and may indeed offer history in emic terms, our paper offers a second avenue to history for the Dhofar pastoralists. Recent archaeological work has established that settlements in the Dhofar escarpment and coastal plain are the encampments of mobile pastoralists without dependence on crop agriculture and products. What has been less clear is the chronology of this settlement pattern, recently tied to the Late Iron Age (300 BCE-300 CE). Our paper reports new radiocarbon assays from archaeological survey and test excavations that complement published radiocarbon dates from highland Dhofar sites, Halqoot and Shakeel. We offer a Bayesian analysis to provide chronological refinement of the crude “history” provided by unconstrained calibrations, and link settlement histories to other published datasets from Dhofar.

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