A vast Eemian palaeolake in Southern Jordan (29°N)

Middle Palaeolithic find spots with Nubian cores from the Southern Negev and the Arava, Israel

“…Past climatic records indicate that during glacial and interglacial periods between MIS 6 and MIS 4 the central Negev was mostly dry (Amit et al 2006;Vaks et al 2007), whereas short humid episodes (Negev Humid Periods, (2017) NHP), possibly resulting from a northern shift of the African Monsson system, occurred during interglacial times (Blome et al 2012;Kutzbach & Liu 1997;Larrasoaña et al 2013;Torfstein et al 2015;Vaks et al 2010). The last of the NHP (NHP-1) is dated to 142-109 ka and was synchronous with pluvial periods in the Sahara, the Egyptian Desert and the Arabian Peninsula (Osborne et al 2008;Osmond & Dabous 2004;Petit-Maire et al 2010;Rosenberg et al 2011;Yehudai et al 2017;Vaks et al 2006;. Terrestrial corridors between the Negev and Arabia, along which there were sufficient water sources, have been suggested to exist during MIS5 (Breeze et al 2016).…”

Palaeoclimate in the Saharan and Arabian Deserts during the Middle Palaeolithic and the potential for hominin dispersals

“…125 ka , and at Saiwan between 132 and 104 ka (Rosenberg et al, 2012). At Mudawwara, Jordan, lacustrine sediments are believed to be remnants of a former lake extending over several thousand square kilometres at time intervals between 135 and 116 ka and 95 and 88 ka (Petit-Maire et al, 2010).…”

“…147 ka) (Goodall, 1995), two UTh measurements from freshwater mollusca within lacustrine sediments at Mudawwara, on the Jordanian/Saudi Arabian border (ca. 170 and 152 ka) (Petit-Maire et al, 2010), optically dated fluvial silts in the Wadi Dhaid, UAE (ca. 152 ka) (Parker and Rose, 2008), and OSL measurements on evaporitic lacustrine sediments sampled from a relict interdunal sabkha in the Liwa region of the Rub' al Khali, UAE (ca.…”

Middle to Late Pleistocene human habitation in the western Nefud Desert, Saudi Arabia

“…Due to its geographic situation, the Nefud Desert shares a number of ecological features with the southern Levant, such as flora, fauna and other biogeographic features (Harrison and Bates, 1991;Stimpson et al, this issue). Research indicates that this may also have been the case in the Pleistocene, with significant water bodies such as the Mudawwara palaeolake (Petit-Maire et al, 2010) spanning what is presently southern Jordan and northern Saudi Arabia. Critically, the Nefud Desert also provides important information regarding the nature and extent of climatic variability within the Arabian interior, where stratified, dated Middle Palaeolithic sites have been found .…”