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The prehistoric graveyard of Ra's al-Hamra 5, Muscat, Sultanate of Oman
... La consommation de tortues marines a été très épisodique en Arabie orientale. Elle est soupçonnée dès le Néolithique du fait de l'inhumation de tortues en lien avec des pratiques rituelles autrefois observées par les anciens occupant du site 5 de Ra's al-Hamra (Salvatori 2007). Des restes de tortues ont également été identifiés au cours de notre étude de la collection de Dalma et de celle des sites de prospection de l'émirat d'Umm al-Quwain. ...
... Sur la dizaine de nécropoles néolithiques connues à ce jour dans la péninsule d'Oman, deux ont fait l'objet d'une étude anthropologique poussée et publiée, permettant de tirer des conclusions sur la démographie des populations : Buhais BHS18, au moins 450 individus, pour une nécropole occupée entre 5100-4000 BC au plus large, entre 4500-4200 BC au minimum ; Ra's al-Hamra RH5, au moins 220 individus 7 , pour une nécropole en activité entre 3800/3700-3300/3200 BC (Kiesewetter 2006;Salvatori 2007). ...
... Rien n'est moins sûr. Toutefois, l'association de chiens ou de restes de chiens à certaines inhumations de femmes, au V e millénaire à Ra's al-Hamra RH5 et à la fin du III e millénaire dans la tombe UNAR 2 de Shimal (EAU) (Blau & Beech 1999 ;Salvatori 2007) est toutefois troublante et tend à appuyer cette hypothèse. ...
Cette thèse intègre l'analyse inédite de plus de 80 000 restes provenant des sites néolithiques d'Akab, de Dalma et de Marawah MR11 (Emirats Arabes Unis) – occupés entre la moitié du VIe et la fin du IVe millénaire av. n. è. Les résultats dévoilent des pêcheries déjà investies dans l'exploitation d'une grande variété de milieux marins. Les poissons capturés et consommés par ces pêcheurs incluent de nombreux sargues, pagres (Sparidae), empereurs (Lethrinidae) et petites aiguilles (Belonidae) qui témoignent avant tout de l'exploitation des eaux côtières peu profondes : le long des rivages ainsi que dans les zones d'herbiers et de récif frangeant. À Akab, la pêche dans la lagune et la mangrove est également reflétée par la présence de nombreux poissons‐chats marins (Ariidae) et mulets (Mugilidae) dans l'assemblage. Les techniques impliquées dans ce type de pêche sont peu sélectives et relativement simples : la prospection des petits fonds à l'aide de senne, la pose de filets calés, voire l'utilisation de barrages à poissons. À Dalma, des nasses étaient probablement déjà employées dans les zones de récifs moyennement profondes, pour la capture de mérous en particulier (Serranidae). Les mangroves et les zones de récifs sont des environnements très productifs auprès desquels les pêcheurs pouvaient vraisemblablement se fournir en poissons et en coquillages tout au long de l'année. En l'occurrence, ceux d'Akab connaissaient et exploitaient probablement déjà les grands rassemblements de becs‐de-cane (Lethrinus nebulosus) près de la lagune d'Umm al‐Quwain, au printemps et à l'occasion de leur frai. L'étude du matériel d'Akab et de Dalma révèle toutefois aussi l'existence d'expéditions de pêche en mer ouverte, impliquant l'usage de bateaux. Ces expéditions sont notamment conduites à la recherche des bancs de thonines (Scombridae) voire de carangues (Carangidae). Leur pêche n'impliquait pas seulement l'emploi de lignes munies d'hameçons en nacre mais aussi celui de filets tels que des sennes tournantes. Ces filets ont également permis aux pêcheurs de Dalma de capturer de grands requins et quelques dauphins plus occasionnellement. Bien que la pêche des bancs de pélagiques soit aujourd'hui considérée comme une activité hivernale dans les pêcheries du Golfe persique, l'existence d'un climat plus humide au Néolithique, alors soumis au régime de la mousson de l'Océan Indien, invite à nuancer nos modèles de saisonnalité. Au Néolithique, la pêche était ainsi pratiquée à la fois de manière généraliste et de manière spécialisée en faisant contribuer un large panel de techniques et de savoirs écologiques aux besoins d'une économie de subsistance reposant principalement sur l'exploitation des ressources marines.
... The study of the peopling of the western coast of the Arabian Sea has greatly improved since the 1970s when surveys and excavations started to be conducted along the coast of the Sultanate of Oman (Durante & Tosi, 1977;Uerpmann & Uerpmann, 2003). Many shell middens were discovered in those years and a preliminary chronological assessment of the most important sites and graveyards was suggested for the first time (Biagi, 1994;Salvatori, 2007). The results have shown that communities of semi-sedentary, aceramic fishergatherer-food producers settled along the coast of the Sultanate from the beginning of the Neolithic, around the middle of the 6th millennium cal BC (Biagi, 1999;Biagi & Nisbet, 2006) or a few centuries earlier (Zazzo et al., 2016). ...
The Indus Delta plays an important role in the archaeology of the northern coast of the Arabian Sea. Little was known of this region until a few decades ago. The first surveys were carried out in the 1970s and were resumed by the present author in the 2010s. They have shown the great potential of the area for the interpretation of sea-level rise and its related human settlement between the beginning of the Holocene and the Hellenistic period. In this territory, several limestone terraces rise from the alluvial plain of the River Indus, which were islands in prehistoric and early historic times. Many archaeological artefacts, along with marine and mangrove shells, have been recovered from their surface and radiocarbon dated. These discoveries help us to follow the events that took place in the region in well-defined periods and interpret some aspects of the prehistoric coastal settlement in relation to the advance of the Indus Fan and the retreat of the Arabian Sea. The following questions are addressed in this paper: who settled these islands, when and why? During which prehistoric periods were mangrove and marine environments exploited? And what were the cultural characteristics of the communities that seasonally or permanently settled some of the present ‘rocky outcrops’?
... Using boats for accessing pelagic fish schools and colonizing islands also consists of an initial stage towards an advanced maritime adaptation. Furthermore, ritualized practices highlight a firm reliance of social representations on the marine world, as shown by the intentional deposit of seashells, pearls (Charpentier et al. 2012;Méry et al. 2016), and marine megafauna remains in burials-sea turtle skeletons at Ra's al-Hamra RH5 (Salvatori 2007) and, among others, dugong ribs and scapulae at Marawah MR11 (Beech et al. 2005). At Akab, it has also been expressed by the edification of a unique and outstanding dugong bone monument by the end of the 4th millennium BCE ). ...
In Eastern Arabia, the Neolithic period (c. 6500–3300 BCE) corresponds to a cultural phase principally characterized by the development of mixed economies based on fishing, pastoralism, and hunting. Since the 1970s, a great number of Neolithic sites have been discovered and excavated along the coastline and on the coastal islands of both the Arabian Gulf and the Sultanate of Oman while only a few examples of inland sites are known to date. It evidences an original case of ’coastal adaptation’ of the human populations of the Saharo-Arabian arid belt during the Holocene. In fact, Neolithic sites are mostly concentrated close to high biodiversity and biomass ’hot spots’ such as estuaries, mangroves, seagrass meadows, and coral reefs where marine life abounds in the form of shellfish, crustaceans, marine mammals, and fish.
The scope of the present paper is to gather the data and discuss the results of the zooarchaeological studies conducted since the late 1980s on marine fish remains retrieved from Neolithic sites of Eastern Arabia (from Kuwait to the Sultanate of Oman) in terms of main catches, fishing grounds, techniques, and equipment as well as seasonality and consumption modes. Furthermore, subsistence strategies and mobility patterns during the Neolithic are discussed taking into account data from palaeo-climatic studies.
... Un important ensemble sépulcral a également été mis au jour, avec près de cent cinquante tombes fouillées à ce jour. Il s'agit de sépultures en fosse, où les morts sont déposés sur le côté, dans une position dite « foetale » [SALVATORI, 2007 ;MUNOZ, 2014]. ...
... They were obtained from wood charcoal and are attributed to the first conquest of the Al-Hallaniyat Islands in a period that ranges from the beginning of the Late Neolithic, at the end of the fifth millennium, to the beginning of the fourth millennium BCE (Table 1). This first Late Neolithic phase is already well represented on the Omani coast by several sites, such as Suwayh 2, Ra's Jibsh, Khuwaymah 2, Sharbithat 10, and Ra's al-Hamra 5 (Biagi 1994(Biagi , 1999Charpentier 2008;Charpentier et al. 2012;Maiorano et al. 2018;Salvatori 2007;Zerboni et al. 2020). ...
In southern and south-eastern Arabia, the Neolithic developed between 6500 and 3100 BCE. In the Sultanate of Oman, occupation occurred along wadi banks, around paleolakes, and at large shell-middens accumulated on the shores of the Arabian Sea. Nevertheless, the origins and development of human occupation on the Arabian Sea islands are poorly known, if not totally undocumented. After exploring the archaeological potential of the large island of Masirah, we focused our research on the small Al-Hallaniyat archipelago (formerly known as the Kuria Muria islands). A preliminary archaeological survey led us to test several sites belonging to different occupational phases on the island, and we explored the largest shell-midden at the HLY-4 site in 2014 and 2019. Radiocarbon dating results, along with lithic analysis, demonstrate that at around 4200–4000 BCE, a Neolithic community settled the largest island (Al-Hallaniyah). While goats and dogs had been introduced as livestock, fish and dolphins were regularly fished and captured as a main food resource together with marine turtles and nesting birds. At HLY-4, not only lithic and bone artifacts characterize the assemblage, as standardized discoid marine-shell beads were also manufactured. The Neolithic conquest of Masirah Island occurred early in the Neolithic (at the beginning of the sixth millennium BCE), while the settlements on the Farasan islands (in the Red Sea) are dated to around 4500 BCE, and thus the ones on the Al-Hallaniyat archipelago to the end of the fifth millennium BCE. In Arabia, their chronological assessment marks the final conquest of the insular areas.
... The total area of each of the two sites is estimated at approximately 3500 m 2 for RH-6 and 3000 m 2 for RH-5. Several successive campaigns have highlighted a deep stratigraphy of almost 2 m with numerous finds, including animal remains, fishing gear, and burials (Biagi 1987(Biagi , 1999Biagi and Maggi 1987;Biagi and Nisbet 1992;Biagi and Salvatori 1986;Coppa et al. 1985;Marcucci et al. 2011Marcucci et al. , 2014Salvatori 2007). The first fish bone analyses at Ra's al-Hamra were carried out by Biagi and Travers (1985), followed by more recent studies by Uerpmann and Uerpmann (2003) and Wilkens (2005); however, their results did not take into account the chronology of the site. ...
Ra’s al-Hamra 6 (RH-6) and Ra’s al-Hamra 5 (RH-5) are two of the most important Neolithic coastal sites in the Sultanate of Oman. Located in the capital Muscat, they have supplied an important corpus of fish bones and revealed a high taxonomic richness in the different assemblages. The results provided information on fishing practices that held an important role in the subsistence strategies of the inhabitants during the two millennia of occupation (sixth to fourth millennia BC). Pelagic species (jacks and kawakawa/tunas) were largely dominant throughout both occupations, calling into question the interpretation of inshore or offshore fishing; these fish could have been caught with a hook-and-line or by setting nets at a reasonable distance from the coast. However, the inhabitants also had to supplement this subsistence by catching demersal fish and small fish, caught from the cliff, in the estuary or the mangrove. At both sites, the inhabitants clearly exploited the different nearby inshore environments: coastal open water, reefs, estuary, and mangrove. Moreover, the high fish richness (69 genera at RH-6; 35 genera at RH-5) indicates that both sites could have been occupied on a year-round basis.
This article, first archaeological then mythological, focuses on a hybrid animal, a "fish-woman", the dugong, to which a Neolithic community devoted certain rituals, in the Arabian Gulf, on the island of Akab. Nearchus' tale of a Nereid is said to be an update of a very ancient Eurasian prototype. It would have concerned a supernatural woman from another world, from whom it would have been possible to obtain goods through a union limited in time and space. The Akab sanctuary was erected in her honor.
Cet article, archéologique puis mythologique, porte sur un animal hybride, une « femme-poisson » bonne à penser, le dugong, auquel une communauté néolithique a consacré certains rituels, dans le Golfe arabo-persique, sur l’île d’Akab. Le récit de Néarque évoquant une Néréide serait une actualisation d’un prototype eurasiatique très ancien. Il aurait concerné une femme surnaturelle, relevant d’un monde autre, dont il aurait été possible d’obtenir des biens grâce à une union limitée dans le temps et l’espace. Le sanctuaire d’Akab aurait été dressé en son honneur
Archaeological investigations conducted since 2006 at Masāfī (hinterlands of the Emirate of Fujairah, UAE) have led to the discovery of several architectural entities organised around the local palm grove and in use from the Bronze Age onwards. The whole complex constitutes an important site for understanding the regional protohistory in Eastern Arabia, in particular regarding the development of oasis agriculture as well as copper mining and metallurgy. The site of Masāfī 5 has revealed the presence of an ancient settlement organised on a series of terraces which have been occupied during the Late Bronze Age (1600–1300 BCE) and at the beginning of the Iron Age (1300–300 BCE). Domestic and potential metallurgical activities at the site have been evidenced by the presence of fireplaces and furnaces that could have been used for copper smelting. The site economy is also documented by faunal remains, including those of domesticated mammals and a substantial amount of marine shells.
The results of the present study highlight that marine molluscs were not only exploited as seafood at Masāfī 5 but also for their shell, which was used both as tools and raw material for the production of adornments, including polished plaques of mother-of-pearl and Conus rings. Use-wear analyses have shown the use of shell tools for processing vegetal fibres—we suggested that date palm fibres (i.e., leaflets and leaf sheath) were exploited and used. Coastal-hinterland exchange across the region during the Bronze Age and the Iron Age (3rd-1st millennia BCE) is discussed in light of the present results.
Islam is the only biblical religion that still practices animal sacrifice. Indeed, every year more than a million animals are shipped to Mecca from all over the world to be slaughtered during the Muslim Hajj. This multi-disciplinary volume is the first to examine the physical foundations of this practice and the significance of the ritual. Brannon Wheeler uses both textual analysis and various types of material evidence to gain insight into the role of animal sacrifice in Islam. He provides a 'thick description' of the elaborate camel sacrifice performed by Muhammad, which serves as the model for future Hajj sacrifices. Wheeler integrates biblical and classical Arabic sources with evidence from zooarchaeology and the rock art of ancient Arabia to gain insight into an event that reportedly occurred 1400 years ago. His book encourages a more nuanced and expansive conception of “sacrifice” in the history of religion.
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