Middle Palaeolithic raw material procurement and early stage reduction at Jubbah, Saudi Arabia

Abstract

Several hundred Middle Palaeolithic (MP) archaeological sites have now been identified in the Arabian Peninsula. However, the study of lithic raw material properties and related procurement behaviours is still in its infancy. Here we describe raw material procurement and early stage lithic reduction at MP sites in the Jubbah palaeolake basin, in the Nefud Desert, northern Saudi Arabia. We describe the sites identified during our surveys, and we use petrographic studies to demonstrate that MP assemblages were mostly produced from differing forms of ferruginous quartzite. These raw materials do not substantially vary in composition, although they are not identical in terms of factors such as grain size and the proportion of iron oxide. We then describe the lithic technology at these sites, with a particular focus on the largest assemblage identified, Jebel Katefeh-12 (JKF-12), which provides detailed information on lithic reduction at a quartzite source. Analyses from this site are then considered together with data from other MP sites in the Jubbah basin, where similar raw material was used. The results indicate that factors such as initial clast size/shape and reduction intensity play important roles in influencing aspects of morphological and technological variability. Our results suggest that incursions of MP populations into northern Arabia were probably temporally limited, as might be expected in a marginal and generally arid region. MP raw material procurement sites provide a highly visible signal of these ephemeral incursions, providing information on the ways that human populations adapted to the challenging conditions of the Saharo-Arabian arid belt.

Acheulean technology and landscape use at Dawadmi, central Arabia

“…In comparison to their Middle Palaeolithic successors, Lower Palaeolithic hominins may have been less technologically innovative [ 19 , 20 ] and had a more restricted use of the landscape [ 9 , 21 , 22 ]. In the Middle Palaeolithic of Arabia, hominins were climbing mountains to access high quality material for a variety of Levallois core types [ 23 ]; whereas there are no such upland sites in the Arabian Acheulean, with sites located near water sources and tools made on easier to access material [ 8 ].…”

Middle-late Quaternary palaeoclimate variability from lake and wetland deposits in the Nefud Desert, Northern Arabia

“…The wet phases of MIS 5e, 5a and early MIS 3 are associated with repeated hominin occupations of Jubbah and the surrounding area (e.g. Petraglia et al, 2012;Groucutt et al, 2017;. The significant technological differences between these assemblages are consistent with their production by different populations, and probably species, of hominins.…”

The “Flint Depot” of prehistoric northern Israel: Comprehensive geochemical analyses of flint extraction and reduction complexes and implications for provenance studies

“…235 and 239). It is important to note that although direct procurement is not intuitively related to Palaeolithic hunters–gatherers, accumulating evidence from North Africa (Foley & Lahr, ), the Arabian Peninsula (Groucutt et al, ; Jennings et al, ), Israel (Barkai & Gopher, ; Barkai et al, ; Finkel et al, ; Gopher & Barkai, , , ), India (Paddayya et al, , 2002; Paddayya, Jhaldiyal, & Petraglia, ; Petraglia, LaPorta, & Paddayya, ; Shipton, ), and other areas suggests that this was the case at least in certain regions of the old World.…”