The Archaeology and Early History of the Persian Gulf

Geographic origins and dietary transitions during the bronze age in the oman peninsula

“…Correspondingly, with the commencement of the Post-Harappan period (ca. 1900-1300 BC) in the Indus Valley, exchange with South Asia considerably diminished (Kenoyer, 2000;Reade, 2008;Potts, 2009).…”

“…From this point, the population of southeastern Arabia during the early second millennium appears to have steadily diminished, with some areas no longer capable of supporting the local population (Hellyer, 1998;Parker and Goudie, 2008). Settlements decreased in number, became smaller and more ephemeral, and likely persisted only in areas with adequate water supply (Carter, 1997;Crawford, 1998;Hellyer, 1998;Blau, 2007;Potts, 2009). In addition to water, access to a steady food source would have played a critical role in determining where people congregated, making maritime resources particularly attractive and possibly explaining why the majority of Wadi Suq settlements and tombs were positioned along the northern coast (Potts, 1997;Carter, 2003;Parker and Goudie, 2008).…”

“…Potts (1997Potts ( , 2009) contends that pastoralists practicing transhumance existed in this region in conjunction with larger, centralized oasis and coastal settlements, as well as small agricultural units, and engaged in seasonal migrations between the interior (summer) and coast (winter) during the Umm an-Nar period. More data are needed to confirm this supposition, and future isotopic research could entail intratooth sampling of faunal teeth for strontium and oxygen isotopes to examine movement at a seasonal level.…”

Human Response to Climate Change during the Umm an‐Nar/Wadi Suq Transition in the United Arab Emirates

“…Potts, 2001;Parker & Goudie, 2008) -by approximately 2000 BC, previously settled areas could no longer support large numbers of people because of a lack of access to freshwater for both consumption and to maintain oasis agriculture (Hellyer, 1998). As Wadi Suq populations dispersed, settlements decreased in both size and number, and those few second millennium BC domestic structures identified in the archaeological record consist primarily of postholes suggestive of barasti-style homes constructed not with stone but with more ephemeral building materials including palm wood and fronds (Crawford, 1998;Potts, 2009). Correspondingly, little evidence for date palm garden cultivation exists during the Wadi Suq, although an overall dearth of well-preserved plant material may be more indicative of environmental conditions that do not favour plant visibility in the archaeological record and not absence from human diet.…”

“…Throughout the third millennium BC, southeastern Arabia had served as a major provider of copper to Mesopotamia, a region with no natural sources of this base metal (Weeks, 2003). However, with the fall of the Third Dynasty of Ur around 2004 BC, trade relations between the Oman Peninsula and Mesopotamia broke down, with Dilmun rising to become the dominant centre of exchange in the Gulf (Carter, 2003;Potts, 2009). An overall lack of copper mining and smelting activities during the Wadi Suq coupled with the absence of any mention of the region in Mesopotamian cuneiform records further demonstrates the dissolution of interregional networks between these regions (Crawford, 1998;Carter, 2003).…”