The ADIAS
Occasional Newsletter is edited by Dr.
Mark Beech and Peter Hellyer.
"Abu
Dhabi 8 million years ago" Exhibition Opens "Abu Dhabi 8 million
years ago" Exhibition Opens The exhibition "Abu
Dhabi 8 million years ago - Fossils from the Western Region" is
due to open shortly in the foyer of the headquarters building of the
Environmental Research and Wildlife
Development Agency (ERWDA) in Abu Dhabi, where ADIAS
has its offices. The exhibition is sponsored by ADCO,
Takreer and BP,
with support from ERWDA and the Private Department of HH the President. The display backdrop features
a reconstruction of how Abu Dhabi looked 6-8 million years ago. At that
time this region was characterised by a savannah grassland environment
with acacia trees and large rivers. The fossils in the display help
to form a picture of this landscape and provide important information
about the range of animals that once lived in Abu Dhabi. The display
includes a choice of three films in Arabic and English about the fossil
work: "Fossils from western Abu Dhabi - The Animals of 8 Million
Years ago", "Hot Fossils from Abu Dhabi" and "Abu
Dhabi - The Missing Link":
FOSSIL DVD Please note that copies of a DVD which includes all three above films can be purchased directly from the ADIAS office in Abu Dhabi for 80 Dirhams. We only accept cash purchases and recommend you contact our office in advance if you wish to place an order. Customers must collect the DVD themselves from our office. We do not provide any mailing service. Contact details: Fossil DVD, Abu Dhabi Islands Archaeological Survey (ADIAS), P.O. Box 45553, Abu Dhabi, U.A.E. Tel: +971-(0)2-6934515. Fax: +971-(0)2-6810008. Email: adias@erwda.gov.ae WEB LINKS More information about the
exhibition can be obtained on the ADIAS website at: Further information about
the earlier work carried out on Late Miocene fossils in the Western
Region of Abu Dhabi is available at:
As a result of recent activities
and publicity there has been a marked increase in the number of visitors
to the ADIAS website. During April 2005 the site registered more than
110,600 hits from 19,284 unique visitors, an average of around 3687
hits per day from 643 unique visitors. The average monthly visitor trend
continues to increase. On the 21st March, Dr Mark
Beech visited the GCC archaeology team being hosted by the Department
of Antiquities and Tourism in Al Ain, seeing their excavations at
the Iron Age II settlement at Rumeilah,
and joining them on a field trip to the archaeological sites at Qarn
Bint Saud, led by Khalfan Al Zahry, the Department Head, Mohammed
Amir Al Neyadi and Dr Walid Yasin Al-Tikriti.
Further work has been undertaken recently at the Umm az-Zamul Neolithic sites. Following the recent season of work (29th December 2004 - 23rd January 2005) at Umm az-Zamul, carried out by ADIAS in collaboration with the Department of Antiquities and Tourism, Al Ain, further work was carried out from 9th 12th April by a team consisting of Dr Anja Zander (Faculty of Geography, Philipps-Universität Marburg, Germany), Dr Heiko Kallweit (ADIAS Associate) and Dr Mark Beech (ADIAS Senior Resident Archaeologist). This involved geological
and geomorphological reconnaissance of the entire area. A number of
soil pits were excavated to record relevant stratigraphic profiles.
Sediment samples were taken for characterisation and evaluation. Dr
Anja Zander, an expert in luminescence dating also took a number
of OSL (Optically Stimulated Luminescence) samples. These will be taken
back to her laboratory at Marburg
University in Germany. The samples were taken from sand dunes located
above and below our Neolithic flint scatters in the hope that this might
provide a bracketed age for the formation of the sediments surrounding
the archaeological sites.
In association with the Supervision
Committee for the new Abu Dhabi International Airport, SCADIA, and
engineering firm Parsons International,
an ADIAS team comprised of Dr. Geoffrey King, Academic Director, Peter
Hellyer, Executive Director, and Chen Qing, School of Oriental and African
Studies, University of London, carried out a field survey in early April
of the area allocated for the construction of the new Airport terminal
and runway. Several new archaeological sites were discovered during
the survey, including a group of three stone cairns that may possibly
be pre-Islamic burials. In all, 10 sites of archaeological and palaeontological
interest have now been discovered in this area, including several identified
during earlier work by Peter Hellyer and Simon Aspinall, ADIAS Environmental
Studies specialist, in 2000 and 2004. ADIAS Visit to Kuwait Dr Mark Beech (ADIAS Senior
Resident Archaeologist) has been invited to visit Kuwait from the 31st
May to the 3rd June 2005, by Shihab Shihab, director of the Department
of Museums and Antiquities, part of the National Council for Culture,
Arts & Letters in Kuwait. Dr Beech will be accompanying Dr
Benno Boer, Programme Specialist - Marine, Coastal and Terrestrial
Environmental Science from the UNESCO
Regional Office for the Arab States of the Gulf, Doha, Qatar, as
well as other environmental experts from the region. The purpose of
the visit is a fact-finding mission to Failaka Island to examine the
archaeological sites and their natural settings and to assess and monitor
the threats to them posed by modern developments on the island.
ADIAS has been invited to
participate in the forthcoming Symposium
on Integrated Coastal Zone Management, organised by the Environmental
Research and Wildlife Development Agency (ERWDA) in Abu Dhabi. The
Symposium will be held at the Beach
Rotana Hotel in Abu Dhabi from the 5th to 8th June 2005. Lectures
Review of ADIAS Publication Dr. Mark Beech's PhD thesis, published last year as Abu Dhabi Islands Archaeological Survey Monograph 1 - In the Land of the Ichthyophagi: Modelling fish exploitation in the Arabian Gulf and Gulf of Oman from the 5th millennium BC to the Late Islamic period. (British Archaeological Reports International Series S1217. ArchaeoPress, Oxford), was reviewed in the January 2005 edition of the journal Adumatu (Issue no.11). click
here to read the arabic version (pdf file - 502 Kb). The review, by Prof. Abbas
S.A. Mohammed Ali (Dept. of Archaeology and Museology, King Saud University,
Riyadh, Saudi Arabia) said…
The following publications have been issued locally since the last ADIAS Occasional Newsletter. Marine Atlas of Abu
Dhabi. Aspinall S., R.Loughland,
A.H. Al Ali and S.A. Wrdyani. 2004. Important Marine Areas for Birds
in Abu Dhabi Emirate. Pages 218-237. Forthcoming Publications The Zayed Centre for Heritage and History (ZCHH) will shortly be publishing the first volume of a new series called "Emirates Heritage". Volume 1 is the Proceedings of the 1st Annual Symposium on Recent Archaeological Discoveries in the Emirates, Al Ain 2003. The volume is edited by Peter Hellyer and Dr Michele Ziolkowski, and includes the following papers by ADIAS staff: Beech, M. and W. Higgs. A New Late Miocene Fossil Site in Ruwais, Western Region of Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. Pages 5-20. Higgs, W., A.Gardner and
M. Beech. A Fossil Proboscidean trackway at Mleisa, Western Region of
Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. Pages 21-27. Kallweit, H., M. Beech and
W.Y. Al-Tikriti. 2005. Kharimat Khor al-Manahil: New Neolithic sites
in the south-eastern desert of the United Arab Emirates. PSAS 35. Beech, M. In Search of the Ichthyophagoi: Neolithic Fishing Communities of the Arabian Gulf and Gulf of Oman. This was a paper presented
by Dr Mark Beech at the International Conference, "Magan, an Early
Arabian Civilization and the first Maritime Trade between India and
the Near East", held from 24-25 April 2004 in Muscat. The paper
has been submitted to "Magan", the new journal to be
produced by the Department
of Excavations and Archaeological Studies, Ministry of Heritage and
Culture, Muscat, Sultanate of Oman. Beech, M. and E. Glover.
The environment and economy of an Ubaid-related settlement on Dalma
island, United Arab Emirates. More news soon!
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