Living and Crafting at the Edge of Arabia: The Early Bronze Age Settlement System of Ras Al Jinz

The bay of Ras Al Jinz, at the easternmost tip of the Arabian Peninsula, hosts one of the most significant Early Bronze Age settlement complexes of coastal Oman, offering a unique window onto the settlement patterns and socio- economic transformations that marked the region during the Bronze Age. Excavations conducted over the past three decades at RJ-2 and RJ-3 reveal a long sequence of occupation spanning from the Late Neolithic (ca. 4300–3200 BCE) through the Hafit period (ca. 3200–2600 BCE) to the Umm an-Nar period (ca. 2600–2000 BCE). During the Umm an-Nar period, these two neighbouring sites, located on opposite sides of the bay, formed a single, extensive settlement complex covering 3–4 hectares, continuously occupied throughout this phase. This integrated landscape reflects an evolving organization of space, work, and community life that illustrates the broader cultural and societal developments of the Early Bronze Age in Southern Sharqiyah. RJ-2, the main residential nucleus, presents a long stratigraphic sequence organized into successive architectural compounds that demonstrate evolving construction techniques and increasingly complex spatial planning. Evidence of domestic life, storage, and large-scale food processing, including smoking installations for fish curing, attests to intensive exploitation of marine resources and the production of surpluses. Across the bay, RJ-3 functioned as a specialised workshop quarter, where excavations revealed a series of ephemeral huts and working floors with abundant production debris related to the manufacture of shell and stone ornaments, supported by specialised toolkits. Together, RJ-2 and RJ-3 represent a coherent socio-economic system in which residential and productive dimensions were closely integrated. Their spatial and functional complementarity embodies a decisive step toward economic diversification and intra-site specialisation, key hallmarks of complexification during the third millennium BCE.

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