Multiple phases of human occupation in Southeast Arabia between 210,000 and 120,000 years ago

Abstract

Changing climatic conditions are thought to be a major control of human presence in Arabia during the Paleolithic. Whilst the Pleistocene archaeological record shows that periods of increased monsoon rainfall attracted human occupation and led to increased population densities, the impact of arid conditions on human populations in Arabia remains largely speculative. Here, we present data from Jebel Faya in Southeast (SE) Arabia, which document four periods of human occupation between c. 210,000 and 120,000 years ago. The Jebel Faya record indicates that human occupation of SE Arabia was more regular and not exclusively linked to major humid periods. Our data show that brief phases of increased rainfall additionally enabled human settlement in the Faya region. These results imply that the mosaic environments in SE Arabia have likely formed a population refugia at the end of the Middle and the beginning of the Late Pleistocene.

Human dispersals out of Africa via the Levant

“…3G) (56,57). Further southward, the ages (falling in MIS 5, MIS 3, and the Holocene) of sediments of lakes and wetlands were in agreement with the ages of interbedded archaeological layers in Jebel Faya (24,58), indicating multiple phases of human presence in the region (21). The timing of speleothem deposition in Hoti and Mukalla caves in southern Arabia (23,59) was consistent with the formation of paleolakes, i.e., the Saiwan paleolake (60), the Khujaymah, and Mundafan lakes (22), during the MIS 5 and the Holocene (Figs.…”

Following the evolution of Homo sapiens across Africa using a uniparental genetic guide

“…These potential arrivals coincide with wet stages of MIS5, with the split of the mtDNA L3’4 clade (Table 2), and also with genomic results that place indigenous Arabs as direct descendants of the first Eurasian populations [120], showing a comparative excess of Basal Eurasian ancestry [121]. However, recent archaeological sequences excavated in different regions of Arabia have evidenced hominin presence since 400 kya in the Nefud Desert [122], and since 210 kya at Jebel Faya[123] enabling much older hominin expansions into the Peninsula or even to an autochthonous hominin evolution in southwest Asia that got extinct by adverse climatic cycles and/or the arrival of modern humans. Finally, it should be mentioned that an exit through the Bab al Mandab Strait does not guarantee the existence of a southern coastal route since an inland northward expansion is also possible [124].…”

New evidence of Pleistocene hominin occupations in Kerman Province, southern Iran

“…Prior to the 2021 survey, evidence of Pleistocene hominin occupation was exceptionally limited in southern Iran. This is in sharp contrast with reports of numerous Palaeolithic occupations within the southern Persian Gulf, specifically in the Arabian Peninsula (Armitage et al 2011;Bretzke et al 2014Bretzke et al , 2022Groucutt et al 2021). Although the significance of the lower part of the Iranian Plateau as a hominin dispersal route has been commented on by one of the authors (HVN), the need to prove such a claim via archaeological evidence was inevitable.…”