The Dilmun Bioarchaeology Project: a first look at the Peter B. Cornwall Collection at the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology

Abstract

This article presents an overview of the Peter B. Cornwall collection in the Phoebe A. Hearst Museum of Anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley. Cornwall conducted an archaeological survey and excavation project in eastern Saudi Arabia and Bahrain in 1940 and 1941. At least twenty‐four burial features were excavated in Bahrain from five different tumuli fields, and surface survey and artefact collection took place on at least sixteen sites in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain. The skeletal evidence, objects and faunal remains were subsequently accessioned by the Hearst Museum. The authors recently formed the Dilmun Bioarchaeology Project to investigate this collection. This article provides background information on Cornwall’s expedition and an overview of the collection. Additionally, skeletal evidence and associated objects from two tumuli in Bahrain, D1 and G20, are presented to illustrate the collection’s potential contribution. Although the tumuli’s precise locations cannot be determined, associated objects help assign relative dates to these interments at the beginning of the second millennium BCE, the Early Dilmun Period.

Bioarchaeology-related studies in the Arabian Gulf: potentialities and shortcomings

“…The area is enriched of Prehistoric archaeological sites (Groucutt & Petraglia 2012;Petraglia et al 2019); however, despite its unquestionable value and importance from historical, archaeological and anthropological point of view, some areas remain under-investigated (Groucutt & Petraglia 2012;Petraglia et al 2019;Petraglia et al 2020). It is worthy noticing that even though the number of anthropological studies in the Gulf is significantly smaller than the number of studies available for other areas, researches conducted in the past years have provided important insights on funerary practices, biology, and population dynamics in the Middle Eastern region (Coppa et al 1985;Macchiarelli 1989;Coppa et al 1990;Mack & Coppa 1992;Bondioli et al 1998;Littleton 1998;Santini 2002;Coppa & Cucina 2007;Salvatori 2007;Weeks 2010;Porter & Boutin 2012;Gregoricka 2013a;Gregoricka 2013b;Zazzo et al 2014;Broushaki et al 2016;Gallego-Llorente et al 2016;Lazaridis et al 2016;Hüneburg et al 2019;Petraglia et al 2019;Williams & Gregoricka 2019;Petraglia et al 2020).…”

“…First bioarchaeological studies were reported as early as beginning of 1980s (Frohlich 1982) but in depth research followed only by the end of 1990s (Littleton 1998;Littleton 1999). Recently also bones from the older excavations became the subject of "The Dilmun Bioarcheological Project", which aims at studying the skeletons transferred to US in mid 1940s (Porter & Boutin 2012;Boutin 2016).…”

FACE TO FACE WITH THE PAST: Reconstructing a Teenage Boy from Early Dilmun

“…to the end of the first millennium c.e. (for further details of the DBP's findings, see Porter and Boutin 2012).…”