Lloyd Richard Weeks- BA (Hons), PhD
- Professor at University of New England
Lloyd Richard Weeks
- BA (Hons), PhD
- Professor at University of New England
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Publications (85)
Understanding the development and use of musical instruments in prehistory is often hampered by poor preservation of perishable materials and the relative rarity of durable examples. Here, the authors present a pair of third-millennium BC copper cymbals, excavated at Dahwa, Oman. Although they are the only well-contextualised examples from Arabia,...
Since the early Neolithic (∼10,000 years ago), the Iranian Plateau has witnessed the development of sedentary human settlement facilitated by periods of favorable climatic conditions prompting gradual or sweeping changes. Climate factors significantly drove the hydroclimatic conditions in western and southeastern Iran, which varied in response to t...
Excavations at Saruq al-Hadid, Dubai, UAE, discovered a stone tool technology with backed microliths dating to the Wadi Suq period and Late Bronze Age (ca. 1750–1300 BCE). The stone technology is a contemporary with metal production in the region, and the assemblage was recovered from a thick bone midden deposit at this multi-period site on the edg...
Excavations at Saruq al-Hadid, Dubai, have recovered a large assemblage of stone artefacts, including backed microliths, from a dense midden of animal bone deposited during the mid-second millennium BC. Stoneworkers at Saruq al-Hadid combined simple core reduction methods with sophisticated backing techniques to produce the microliths. Unstandardiz...
The house mouse (Mus musculus) represents the extreme of globalization of invasive mammals. However, the timing and basis of its origin and early phases of dispersal remain poorly documented. to track its synanthropisation and subsequent invasive spread during the develoment of complex human societies, we analyzed 829 Mus specimens from 43 archaeol...
Excavations at Saruq al-Hadid, a late prehistoric (c.2000 BCE – c.800 BCE) site located in the Emirate of Dubai, U.A.E., have recovered several tonnes of animal bone. Due to a thorough sieving and retention strategy the remains of a range of taxa were collected, from camels to rodents. Within this wealth of material several dozen fragments of a var...
Marine resources were an integral and consistent component of subsistence strategies employed in south‐eastern Arabia throughout late prehistory. Of particular interest is the movement of these resources from the coast to interior sites and the implications of this movement for transhumance and trade in the region during this period. Marine species...
Fishing is known to have been an integral component of life in prehistoric coastal communities in southeastern Arabia and the recovery of fish bones from sites away from the coast indicates that fish were also an important resource at inland sites in this area. Recent excavations undertaken at the late prehistoric (c.2000–c.800 BCE) site of Saruq a...
This article presents and discusses a corpus of worked and decorated shell discs from recently excavated archaeological sites in southern Arabia, including Dibba (northern Oman), Saruq al‐Hadid (UAE) and Sumhuram/Khor Rori (southern Oman). The artefacts are compared to a wide range of shell discs from controlled excavations in Arabia and the broade...
The study presents a new approach for the investigation of ancient ferrous artefacts, by combining non-invasive and invasive techniques: neutron tomography, optical microscopy, and SEM-EDS, as applied to the objects from Saruq al-Hadid, U.A.E. It is revealed that despite the severe degradation of the objects, neutron tomography allows the detection...
The archaeological site of Saruq al-Hadid, Dubai, United Arab Emirates, presents a long sequence of persistent temporary human occupation on the northern edge of the Rub’ al-Khali desert. The site is located in active dune fields, and evidence for human activity is stratified within a deep sequence of natural dune deposits that reflect complex taph...
The Fertile Crescent, its hilly flanks and surrounding drylands has been a critical region for studying how climate has influenced societal change, and this review focuses on the region over the last 20,000 years. The complex social, economic, and environmental landscapes in the region today are not new phenomena and understanding their interaction...
This paper presents an integrated approach to the identification of complex reprocessing operations of ancient ferrous artefacts from the multi-period site of Saruq al-Hadid, Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Spatial and morphological studies and a range of archaeometric analyses-optical microscopy, X-Ray diffraction, Micro-Raman spectroscopy, neutron t...
The Wadi Suq period (ca.2000-1600 BCE) in southeast Arabia has traditionally been considered something of a “dark age”. More recent understandings suggest that people of the Wadi Suq may have developed lifeways that were strikingly different from the ones that had existed for the preceding thousand years without necessarily abandoning the places pr...
Temporary sites were a critical component of the prehistoric Near Eastern economy but, because of their ephemeral nature, are less frequently the focus of research than sedentary settlements. The present article presents the results of neutron activation analysis conducted on pottery from the temporary site of Saruq al-Hadid, United Arab Emirates....
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00438243.2018.1491324 • In this paper, the authors use the site of Saruq al-Hadid-a 'persistent temporary place' located in the mobile dune fields of the north eastern edge of the Rub' al-Khali desert-as a lens to focus discussion on the variable nature of temporary sites and mobile adaptations within the archae...
We present zooarchaeological data from the camel remains recently excavated from Saruq al-Hadid, dating to the mid-Bronze to early Iron Age (2200-800BC). We show the insights into the relationship between humans and camels this data provides and explore the potential ramifications of these insights into our understanding of camel domestication. Thi...
Coverage and Approach: Since its discovery in 2002, Saruq al-Hadid has been recognised for the significance of its very large assemblage of metal artefacts and metallurgical residues – gold, copper alloy, iron, and copper slag – dating from as early as the Iron Age. This paper reviews the nature and chronology of the metallurgical artefacts and act...
The nature of the relationship between humans and wild terrestrial animals has been little discussed in Bronze Age and Iron Age south‐eastern Arabia, largely due to a relative paucity of their remains in contemporary faunal assemblages. In this paper we present the results of analysis of animal bone recently excavated from Saruq al‐Hadid, a late pr...
We present bird remains from Saruq al-Hadid, dating to 2200 - 800 BC. These remains demonstrate the consumption of seabird (Cormorant - Phalacrocorax sp.) at the site. In turn demonstrate the links between Saruq al-Hadid and the coast, along with other sites where cormorant was commonly consumed such as Tell Abraq. A fragment of raptor in the remai...
Saruq al-Hadid, in Dubai, UAE, is one of south-eastern Arabia’s most important and enigmatic archaeological sites. Past excavations at this isolated desert site have revealed an assemblage of copper, iron, gold, stone and ceramic artefacts, mostly of Iron Age date, that is unprecedented in its scale and diversity. Since 2014, three seasons of excav...
In the past decade, increasing attention has been paid to the archaeological record of human occupation in Arabia’s desert interior in the Pleistocene and Holocene. This research has focussed particularly on periods of climatic amelioration that facilitated human utilisation of areas that are now hyper arid, for example the ‘Holocene Climatic Optim...
Ancient iron objects from early Iron Age archaeological sites are almost always severely corroded, which can severely limit the possibilities for their archaeometallurgical analysis. In this paper, a range of corroded iron objects from different sites and regions of the ancient Near East are investigated with the purpose of developing an integrated...
Saruq al-Hadid, discovered accidentally in 2002 in the mobile dune fields of southern Dubai, is one of the most important but enigmatic sites in Arabia. Within sand dunes up to six meters deep it displays a super-abundance of material remains (including items of copper, iron, gold, bone, wood, stone, and shell, in addition to metal production resid...
: In November 2014, UNE commenced a program of excavation and post-excavation analyses focused on the site of Saruq al-Hadid in Dubai, U.A.E., in collaboration with Dubai Municipality. This paper presents a summary and review of the results this research, focusing on new understandings of the stratigraphy and chronology of the site, the subsistence...
Saruq al-Hadid is an archaeological site principally dated to the early Iron Age (c. 1300-800 BC), located in the desert region of Dubai, 40 km from the nearest coast and 60 km from the nearest mountains. Despite the site’s remote location from all known regional ore deposits, it features abundant metallurgical residues from copper, gold and iron-m...
https://blog.une.edu.au/uneresearch/sharp-the-saruq-al-hadid-archaeological-research-project/
Archaeological surveys of Qeshm Island conducted in 2006 and 2012 have identified a total of 191 archaeological sites dating from prehistoric to late Islamic times and provided new insights into the ancient settlement of the island. Among the identified sites, seven (three settlements and four cemeteries) can be attributed to the Bronze Age, repres...
In September 2014, the University of New England (UNE), Australia, began a three-year programme of archaeological fieldwork and post-excavation analyses focused on the site of Saruq al-Hadid. In this paper, we present the initial results of our current field and laboratory research particularly related to site stratigraphy and formation processes,...
Since late 2014, the University of New England (UNE) has been collaborating with the government of Dubai to investigate the site of Saruq al-Hadid, United Arab Emirates. Our project, known as SHARP (the Saruq al-Hadid Archaeological Research Project), aims to understand one of the most surprising, complex, enigmatic and perplexing late prehistoric...
Saruq al-Hadid, in Dubai, UAE, is one of south-eastern Arabia’s most important and enigmatic archaeological sites. Since 2003, excavations at the site have revealed an assemblage of archaeological artefacts, mostly of Iron Age date, that is unprecedented in its scale and diversity. The thousands of bronze, iron, and gold artefacts from the site, ac...
The Crucible (Historical Metallurgy Society News, Summer 2016)
Ancient Persia witnessed one of its most prosperous cultural and socioeconomic periods between 550 BC and AD 651, with the successive domination of the Achaemenid, Seleucid, Parthian and Sassanian Empires. During this period agricultural activities increased on the Iranian plateau, as demonstrated by a remarkable arbori-cultural expansion. However,...
A multiproxy record from Lake Parishan, SW Iran, shows human impact on the lake and its catchment over the last 4000 years. The Parishan record provides evidence of changes in lake hydrology, from ostracod, diatom and isotope analyses, that are directly linked to human activity in the catchment; recorded by pollen and charcoal and supported by regi...
Our multidisciplinary investigation represents off-fault archaeoseismic indicators recorded in the archaeological remains at mounds and structural elements of monuments situated along the Kāzerun fault in the western Zagros Mountains since the Chalcolithic period. The study revealed two large magnitude earthquakes (~M>7.0, possibly ~7.3) ca. 3850-3...
The results of the lead isotope analysis (LIA) of 15 copper-base artefacts from the Bronze Age site of al-Midamman, Yemen, are reported. The LIA data suggest the existence of an indigenous Bronze Age metal production and exchange system centred on the southern Red Sea region, distinct from those in neighbouring regions of Arabia and the Levant. The...
This article summarises the papers presented at a workshop on the early metallurgy of Iran, held in the Department of Archaeology, University of Nottingham, in September 2007. The fourteen presentations from scholars based in Iran, Europe, and the USA summarise newly collected data and contextualise recent archaeometallurgical research on an Iran-w...
This article summarises the papers presented at a workshop on the early metallurgy of Iran, held in the Department of Archaeology, University of Nottingham, in September 2007. The fourteen presentations from scholars based in Iran, Europe, and the USA summarise newly collected data and contextualise recent archaeometallurgical research on an Iran-w...
This article presents the results of an investigation into the production of copper and bronze objects at the prehistoric site of Tell Abraq, United Arab Emirates. During the course of four seasons of excavation since 1989, over 550 metal objects have been unearthed from all occupational phases at Tell Abraq. These objects were made of copper and c...
Fars province is quintessentially Persian. Its name is the modern version of ancient Parsa, the homeland, if not the place of origin, of the Persians, one of the great powers of antiquity. From here, the Persian Empire ruled much of Western and Central Asia, receiving ambassadors and messengers at Persepolis. It was here that the Persian kings were...
The article presents the analytical results of a study of copper-base artifacts from ed-Dur, a large site in the United Arab Emirates which was occupied principally during the 1st century A.D. In addition to identifying a number of pieces with high lead content, the analyses have contributed to an understanding of brass and brass distribtion in the...
The subject of this article is the evidence for the earliest use and trade of tin and bronze in Western Asia. The article begins with an outline of the 'tin problem', followed by an overview of recent archaeometric research programs of importance to discussions of the Early Bronze Age tin trade in Western Asia and the Aegean. Subsequently, relevant...
