Green Arabia: Human prehistory at the Crossroads of Continents

Petraglia, Michael D.; Parton, Ash; Groucutt, Huw S.; Alsharekh, Abdullah

doi:10.1016/j.quaint.2015.05.071

Cited by 32 publications

(24 citation statements)

References 49 publications

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“…Crassard and Drechsler, 2013;Groucutt and Petraglia, 2012;Petraglia et al, 2015;Petraglia and Rose, 2009). In the case of the Holocene, processes of demographic and behavioural change -such as 'Neolithisation' -are the subject of ongoing debate.…”

Section: Archaeologymentioning

confidence: 99%

Rock art imagery as a proxy for Holocene environmental change: A view from Shuwaymis, NW Saudi Arabia

et al. 2016

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The animal species depicted in the rock art of Shuwaymis, Saudi Arabia, provide a record of Holocene climatic changes, as seen by the engravers. Of 1903 animal engravings, 1514 contained sufficient detail to allow identification with confidence. In addition, the stratigraphy of the engravings and the depiction of domesticates provide a broad chronological framework that allows a division into images created during the Holocene humid phase and animals represented after the onset of desert conditions. Despite the large sample size, only 16 animal species could be identified, which represents an extraordinarily narrow species spectrum. Comparison with the scarce faunal record of the Arabian Peninsula shows that all larger animals that are thought to have been present in the area were also depicted in the rock art. The contemporaneous presence of at least four large carnivores during the Holocene humid phase suggests that prey animals were abundant, and that the landscape consisted of a mosaic of habitats, potentially with thicker vegetation along the water courses of the wadis and more open vegetation in the landscape around them. Community Earth System Models (COSMOS) climate simulations show that Shuwaymis was at the northern edge of the African Summer Monsoon rainfall regime. It is therefore possible that Shuwaymis was ecologically connected with southwestern Arabia, and that an arid barrier remained in place to the north, restricting the dispersal of Levantine species into Arabia.

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Section: Archaeologymentioning

confidence: 99%

Rock art imagery as a proxy for Holocene environmental change: A view from Shuwaymis, NW Saudi Arabia

et al. 2016

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“…Significant improvements have been made in recent years in understanding the relationship between hominin dispersals and Pleistocene occupations through a combination of studies including paleoclimatic modeling of rainfall patterns (24), remote sensing to identify paleorivers and paleolakes (25), and interdisciplinary field programs (20)(21)(22)(23). This work has demonstrated the close relationship between fluctuations in humidity and aridity on the one hand and population expansions, contractions, and extirpations (20,23,26) on the other. Here we review the effects of a series of droughts on Holocene populations in eastern Arabia in the light of emerging paleoenvironmental and archaeological records in northern Arabia.…”

mentioning

confidence: 97%

“…Pleistocene Arabia saw major climatic shifts that appear to be closely linked to a complex history of hominin occupations (22,23). Significant improvements have been made in recent years in understanding the relationship between hominin dispersals and Pleistocene occupations through a combination of studies including paleoclimatic modeling of rainfall patterns (24), remote sensing to identify paleorivers and paleolakes (25), and interdisciplinary field programs (20)(21)(22)(23). This work has demonstrated the close relationship between fluctuations in humidity and aridity on the one hand and population expansions, contractions, and extirpations (20,23,26) on the other.…”

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confidence: 99%

Human responses to climate and ecosystem change in ancient Arabia

Petraglia

Groucutt

Guagnin

et al. 2020

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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Recent interdisciplinary archaeological and paleoenvironmental research in the Arabian peninsula is transforming our understanding of ancient human societies in their ecological contexts. Hypotheses about the cultural and demographic impacts of a series of droughts have primarily been developed from the environmental and archaeological records of southeastern Arabia. Here we examine these human–environment interactions by integrating ongoing research from northern Arabia. While droughts and extreme environmental variability in the Holocene had significant impacts on human societies, responses varied across space and time and included mobility at various scales, as well as diverse social, economic and cultural adaptations, such as the management of water resources, the introduction of pastoral lifeways, and the construction of diverse types of stone structures. The long-term story of human societies in Arabia is one of resilience in the face of climate change, yet future challenges include rising temperatures and flash flooding. The history of human responses to climatic and ecosystem changes in Arabia can provide important lessons for a planet facing catastrophic global warming and environmental change.

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“…This huge pattern resulted in drastic shift in earth's ecology and ecosystem replacing green places to dry land and rivers to deserts. Its proof is the ongoing research on Arabian Peninsula which is supposed to be green before [Petraglia et al, 2015]. Apart from scientific proofs on the green Arabia it is interesting to find such prophecy in the teachings of Prophet Muhammad (sal'lallahualihiwasallam) that Arabia will become green again [Al-Hajjaj (Book of zakat, 2208), 2000].…”

Section: Existential Timementioning

confidence: 99%

A new theory of Time connecting differentiated cum undifferentiated universe

Sidddiqui¹

2018

PhST

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Time, the most mysterious and misunderstood truth of the universe has been paralyzed by modern science and philosophy. Time has not found any active role in the sustenance of universe other than to measure the space. Universe is differentiated internally who's existence shows undifferentiated uniformity as a whole. The democracy in the nature is so evident that existing notion and concept of time and space is unable to explain that bizarre nature. At first, this lack of understanding will be disseminated and established by considering the Newtonian, relativist and quantum world view of the time and space that demonstrate their inability to narrate causal explanation of the natural world. This vacuum will motivate philosophical enquiry on the question rather than depending only on scientific data. Existence has two unavoidable questions to be known about, first, `what it is' and second `what it is for'. Both ancient and modern progress on the discussion of time only exposed the second part that is `what it is for'. The first question `what it is' has not been even defined as the question to be pondered on. Keeping these two questions in context, a new theory of time has been proposed which is dynamic and active in every existence of this universe. The theory is able to give a fresh look of the universe while justifying all the paradoxes posed by the vacuum created due to existing notion of Time and its relation to universe. This paper will tackle the second question `what it is for', while the second part of this research that will follow shall reveal the mystery of ontology of time that is `what it is'.

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Green Arabia: Human prehistory at the Crossroads of Continents

Cited by 32 publications

References 49 publications

Rock art imagery as a proxy for Holocene environmental change: A view from Shuwaymis, NW Saudi Arabia

Rock art imagery as a proxy for Holocene environmental change: A view from Shuwaymis, NW Saudi Arabia

Human responses to climate and ecosystem change in ancient Arabia

A new theory of Time connecting differentiated cum undifferentiated universe

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