It has become increasingly common in archaeology to utilise virtual globes for regions where few if any aerial photographs are available. Saudi Arabia is one such and it has proved especially useful for identifying and mapping the prolific structures commonly referred to as the 'Works of the Old Men', most prominently kites. These are now generally accepted as hunting traps for migratory animals. Although a few were known in Saudi Arabia, the increasing availability of highresolution 'windows' on virtual globes has revealed them in ever-larger numbers. Such windows can be exploited to define and map archaeological remains and develop methodologies. One particular region with such potential is Harret Khaybar. Progressive additions of high-resolution windows for this harra have revealed 917 kites. Beyond mere counting, analysis allows the development of typologies and identification of locally distinctive forms-notably the 'barbed' form; mapping and the interpretation of patterns in relation to geology, soils, water sources and vegetation; and associations with other 'works', with scope for creating at least relative chronologies. The present study provides data and preliminary analysis, and guidance for such a holistic ground-based archaeological project should the opportunity arise.
The desert regions of the Arabian Peninsula and Levant are criss-crossed by innumerable pathways. Across large areas of north-west Arabia, many of these pathways are flanked by stone monuments, the vast majority of which are ancient tombs. Recent radiometric dating indicates that the most abundant of these monuments, elaborate and morphologically diverse ‘pendant’ structures, were constructed during the mid-to-late third millennium BCE. Thousands of kilometres of these composite path and monument features, ‘funerary avenues’, can be traced across the landscape, especially around and between major perennial water sources. By evidencing routes of human movement during this period, these features provide an emerging source for reconstructing important aspects of ancient mobility and social and economic connectivity. They also provide significant new evidence for human/environment interactions and subsistence strategies during the later Middle Holocene of north-west Arabia, and suggest the parallel existence of mobile pastoralist lifeways and more permanent, oasis-centred settlement. This paper draws upon the results of recent excavations and intensive remote sensing, aerial and ground surveys in Saudi Arabia to present the first detailed examination of these features and the vast cultural landscape that they constitute.
The monumental stone structures of the Arabian Peninsula have been notoriously difficult to date. Due to their visibility in the landscape, they have suffered from extensive robbing and later reuse, which has compromised dating methodologies. In particular, our understanding of when the elaborate “pendants” (also known as “tailed cairns” or “tailed tower tombs”) of north‐west Arabia were first constructed has remained incomplete. Recent work undertaken by the Aerial Archaeology in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia – Khaybar project provides some of the first radiometric dates for the pendants of Saudi Arabia. These structures can now be dated as far back as the third millennium BCE, revealing for the first time a hitherto undocumented, large‐scale, monumental funerary landscape dating to the Early Bronze Age. These radiocarbon dates bring the advent of the pendant building tradition in line with funerary developments across the wider Arabian Peninsula, and may mark a profound reconfiguring of the wider Harrat Khaybar landscape during the third millennium BCE.
Agricultural practices in northern Sudan have been changing rapidly but remain little documented. In this paper we aim to investigate changes to crops grown in living memory and their uses through interviews with Nubian farmers on the island of Ernetta. By exploring cultivation and crop processing practices, together with associated material culture and foodstuffs, we also seek to explore how agricultural and food heritage are connected, and to better understand reasons for crop changes. Several cereals and pulses that were previously important subsistence crops are now grown as comparatively minor crops. The replacement of the sagia (waterwheel) by diesel pump irrigation, the introduction of commercial crops, and the reduction of the annual flood have led to fundamentally new cropping patterns within household farms. At the same time, each species has its own narrative and timing of change. Shifts in crops grown are paralleled by transitions in foodways, associated material culture, and land use. The project is timely, as much of the information about past crop uses resides in the memories of elderly farmers. The findings highlight the broader global need to document endangered memories of cropping patterns, traditional ecological and food knowledge, including local terms for foods and crops.
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