First Evidences of a New Funerary Tradition on The Necropolis of Khawr Jirama: Towards the Discovery of an Original Culture in Oman During the 4th Millenium BC?

Archaeological campaigns led during five years on the necropolis of Khawr Jirama, located in the Sharqiya, have brought to light what appears to be a new prehistoric funerary tradition still unknown in Oman. The excavation of seven tombs, located not far from the Jarama lagoon, has enabled the discovery of the earliest monumental Neolithic tombs built in Oman. The oldest ones have been dated from the middle of the 4th millennium BC, that is to say several centuries before the tower tombs of the Hafit period. These tombs discovered at Jarama are characterized by new architecture and funerary practices, rising the question of either the arrival of a new population in this area, carrying new funerary tradition reflecting their social organization, or cultural evolution of local Neolithic cultures. This discovery participate to fill a relative void of data observed until now in Sultanate of Oman between 3500-3100 BCE, a period of transition between the end of the Neolithic and the beginning of the Halit period. Moreover, the Jarama tombs challenge the standing interpretation of the first prehistoric socictics in Sultanate of Oman. The evidence presented in the paper suggests that, before the intensification of trading routes with the city-states of Mesopotamia and the Indus Valley during the 3rd millennium BC, the region was home to strongly structured and probably hierarchical groups, led by members buried in monumental tombs.