Steven Karacic’s research while affiliated with Florida State University and other places

Analyses of archaeological bone tool assemblages from the southeastern United States rely principally on morphological classification systems to delineate typologies and infer artifact function. Under these systems the actual purpose of pointed bone artifacts generically classified as “awls” is frequently overlooked. In this study we move beyond basic morphological classification by combining zooarchaeological analysis, technological assessment, use-wear analysis, and materials science studies to examine an assemblage of bone tools from an ancient Native American site in central Tennessee. Our analysis reveals that approximately 3500–1600 BCE, occupants of the Fernvale site employed sharpened turkey (Meleagris gallopavo) bone tools as tattooing implements, and that both red and black pigment remains are directly associated with these artifacts. These materials comprise the earliest directly-identified tattooing tools to date, and demonstrate the persistence of Native American tattooing in southeastern North America over at least three millennia.

The Iron Age II site of Hili 2 (Emirate of Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates) is remarkable because of its preservation. The initial excavations, begun in the 1970s, unearthed mudbrick walls preserved in places two meters high. Fieldwork recommenced at Hili 2 in 2018 and as part of this effort the previously exposed architecture was re‐examined. Of particular interest were three collapsed mudbrick walls that were excavated in order to conserve the surrounding architecture. The walls were removed course by course, providing new insight into mudbrick construction and raising questions about the social organisation of Iron Age settlements.

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 taphonomic processes of deposition, erosion and reworking. This study presents the results of a program of radiocarbon ( ¹⁴ C) and thermoluminescence dating on deposits from Saruq al-Hadid, allied with studies of material remains, which are amalgamated with the results of earlier absolute dating studies provide a robust chronology for the use of the site from the Bronze Age to the Islamic period. The results of the dating program allow the various expressions of human activity at the site—ranging from subsistence activities such as hunting and herding, to multi-community ritual activities and large scale metallurgical extraction—to be better situated chronologically, and thus in relation to current debates regarding the development of late prehistoric and early historic societies in southeastern Arabia.

Papers from the fifty-second meeting of the Seminar for Arabian Studiesheld at the British Museum, London, 3 to 5 August 2018. results of a petrographic analysis combined to pottery functionnal types.

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 previously occupied. This paper looks in-depth at the site of Saruq al-Hadid to provide insight into the poorly understood Wadi Suq period. Wadi Suq deposits, excavated between 2015 and 2017 by the Saruq al-Hadid Archaeological Research Project (SHARP) under the auspices of the Dubai Municipality, consisted of a thick concentration of animal remains within a sand matrix. The presence of numerous hearths and ash pits dated to the Wadi Suq period provide the chronometric basis for the assessment and is corroborated by stylistic analysis of Wadi Suq ceramics. This paper presents the deposits in detail, then considers how they add to our understanding of the Wadi Suq period of southeast Arabia more broadly. Saruq al-Hadid’s Wadi Suq deposits represent a strong microlithic tool industry; heavy exploitation of marine and terrestrial animal resources; little use of copper-based material; a preponderance of hand-made ceramics; and a striking number of pounders and groundstone tools. Evidence points to a strong integration of the coastal, desert, and piedmont zones; a local environment of low dunes stabilized by vegetation; and an intensification in use of the site during the Wadi Suq period.

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. The results identified both continuity and change in the pottery consumed at the site in the Bronze and Iron Ages, which suggests that the peoples gathering here were integrated into economic practices observed at sedentary sites throughout southeastern Arabia.

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 archaeology of southeastern Arabia, the relationships between temporary sites and permanent settlements, and the evidence for collective events and gatherings from later prehistory into the Islamic period. They discuss evolving arguments regarding sedentary and mobile sites and groups in Arabia from the Neolithic period to the Iron Age, and summarize the material record of human activity at Saruq al-Hadid. This research emphasizes the site's changing significance as a temporary place and its emergence, in the early Iron Age, as a locus for periodic interaction between multiple community groups.

Excavations at Muweilah have uncovered twelve buildings encircled by two pairs of walls and ditches. We have published preliminary studies of several buildings. Research has now progressed to a stage where it is possible to produce a more complete analysis of the architecture. In this report, we present a detailed discussion of the fortifications and each building with its installations. Our assessment of the architecture identified the repeated combination of three rooms in many of the buildings in the Central Area of Muweilah. Moreover, a detailed study of the fortifications revealed several means of accessing Building II, the columned hall, in the Western Area. These findings offer insights into the organisation of Iron Age II settlements in south‐eastern Arabia.

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 Optimum’ [c. 9000-6000 BP] during which greater water and resource availability in the interior allowed for significant exploitation by Neolithic communities. However, the discovery of sites such as Al-Ashoosh, Uqdat al-Bakrah, Jabal Mudhmar, and Saruq al-Hadid in the desert or desert fringes of SE Arabia indicates that human exploitation of the desert continued throughout the Bronze and Iron Ages (and later), during periods of variable but occasionally marked climatic and environmental deterioration. This paper reviews the evidence from these sites, with a particular focus on Saruq al-Hadid, to assess the roles of temporary desert sites in the society and economy of late prehistoric SE Arabia and to understand why human groups continued to return to such superficially ‘hostile’ environments.