Gihayu : A Late Stone Age Fishing Station in the Coast of Yemen

Abstract

An overview of the faunal assemblage retrieved during preliminary excavations of the Neolithic site of Gihayu is presented. The analysis, the first of its kind carried out on a site from Yemen, reveals various similarities and differences with contemporary sites in Oman on the eastern corner of the Arabian Sea. In this site, a heavy reliance on marine resources is noted that testifies both to the collecting of shellfish as well as the fishing of large pelagics in the open sea. The differences relate to the cropping of molluscs along an open shore rather than in lagoons or mangroves as appeared to be the case in Oman. The differences may also reflect phenomena not so straightforwardly related to the availability of certain biotopes. Among these an apparent dominance ofcarangids (jacks) over scombrids (tunas) could be taken to indicate a less seasonally focused fisheiy, a hvpothesis that will require verification in the future.

Climate change and human occupation in the Southern Arabian lowlands during the last deglaciation and the Holocene

“…Populations concentrated along the Arabian sea coast, as attested by several dozens of sites such as RH-5 near Muscat (Biagi et al, 1984), Wadi Shab GAS-1 (Tosi and Usaï, 2003) many sites in the Ja'alan (Cleuziou, 2007) and the newly discovered site of Gihayu near Aden in Yemen (Rosello-Izquierdo et al, 2005) This may be too simplistic an interpretation. Archaeological studies on these sites still attest to a seasonal occupation in winter at and after the time of maximum development of mangroves, and display many relations with the interior.…”