ADIAS Occasional Newsletter - June 2002(issue no. 3 of the 2001-2002 Season)
New Late Stone Age finds at Abu Dhabi Airport Site Further fieldwork carried
out at the archaeological site at the Abu Dhabi Airport Golf Club and
a detailed study of the flint tools recovered during earlier work at
the site have confirmed the importance of the site during the Late Stone
Age period, around 5,500 to 4,000 BC. The site was first discovered
on a range of low hills inside the perimeter of the Golf Club in 1995,
when a short season of fieldwork was undertaken by ADIAS. That work
showed that the site had been occupied during the Late Stone Age, the
early to middle Bronze Age, and in the Late pre-Islamic period, around
the beginning of the Christian era. During late April, a review of the
stone tools and animal remains from the site was undertaken by the ADIAS
flint expert, Dr. Heiko Kallweit, from Germany's University of Freiburg,
with the assistance of Dr. Mark Beech, ADIAS environmental archaeologist
from Britain's University of York. This involved a detailed re-examination
of material collected during the 1996 field season, as well as two further
visits to the site, to search for new material that might have been
uncovered as a result of the spring rains. "This review and the
two site visits have produced valuable new information," according
to Dr. Kallweit. "The site was proved to extend further than had
been originally recognised, and a nearly complete flint arrowhead was
recovered on the southern fringes of the site, as well as a lot of other
worked flint material. The arrowhead was of a type not previously known
to have been found in the UAE, although similar examples have been found
in western Saudi Arabia and in Qatar. This find provides valuable new
information on the possibility of trading routes stretching right the
way across the Arabian peninsula during the Late Stone Age period." During the site visits, Dr.
Kallweit also found a tiny crescent-shaped fragment of worked flint,
known as a microlith, that provides an insight into the way of life
of the UAE's Late Stone Age inhabitants. Two further examples were also
identified during the detailed review of material collected during earlier
fieldwork. "The three pieces are "teeth" of flint that
would have been set into a wooden handle for use as an early sickle
or knife for cutting grasses," Kallweit said. "Once again,
no evidence of such a sickle has previously been recorded in the Emirates,
although examples are known from other regions in the Near East. The
discovery confirms that the people were harvesting grasses or grains,
although it is not possible yet to determine whether they were growing
crops, or just harvesting wild plants." Along with evidence of
sheep, goat and cattle bones found on archaeological sites on Dalma,
in the far west of the UAE, and at Jebel Buhais, in Sharjah, the sickle
pieces confirm that the Late Stone Age inhabitants of the UAE were not
simple hunters and gatherers, but were a pastoral community with a much
broader economic base to their lifestyle. Dalma Archaeological Sensitivity Study Following on from the ADIAS work on Dalma late last year (see last Newsletter), our Resident Archaeologist, Daniel Hull, has prepared a detailed sensitivity study of the archaeological sites on the island. The report has now been submitted to the Abu Dhabi Municipality and Town Planning Department, as well as the Sewerage Projects Committee, to provide them with guidelines on where particular care needs to be taken while undergoing development work on Dalma. With the rapid pace of urban development on Dalma, it is important that the relevant authorities are advised not only of the location of known sites, like the 'Ubaid-related settlement dated to more than 7,000 years ago, the oldest in the Emirates, but also of the techniques that need to be adopted when further work is being planned. The Municipality have now instructed their contractors on the island to liaise closely with ADIAS and ERWDA on further work, while the mapping included with the study will help the Municipality to identify areas within the existing town of Dalma where important archaeological sites may yet remain undiscovered. We thank them for their co-operation., New results from Sir Bani Yas study A short April season of studying
excavated material from pre-Islamic Christian archaeological sites on
Abu Dhabi's islands of Sir Bani Yas and Marawah has yielded important
new dating about the structure of the settlements, and about their cultural
links with elsewhere in the peninsula. The two sites, identified by
ADIAS in 1991, on Sir Bani Yas, and 2000, on Marawah, are the only confirmed
archaeological evidence of the presence of Christians in south-eastern
Arabia in the period immediately before the coming of Islam in the 630s. A new look at the Mleisa footprints During April, our two geological
and geomorphological consultants, Professor Graham Evans and Dr. Tony
Kirkham, made another visit to Abu Dhabi to continue their studies of
the coastline and sabkhas, as part of continuing evaluation of shoreline
and sea level changes over the past few thousand years. They took the
opportunity to pay a visit to the site at Mleisa, south-east of Ruwais,
where some fossil footprints were identified by Daniel Hull and Stephen
Rowland last year. They were accompanied by Hull and Rowland, and also
by Mubarak al-Mansouri, of ADCO's Jebel Dhanna staff, who first showed
us the footprints. According to Evans and Kirkham, the fossilised flood
plain on which the footprints are situated is not of Pleistocene date,
as was originally suspected, but is a Late Miocene formation, probably
five to six million years old. They confirm, however, that the impressions
may well be fossil footprints, probably of animals of a similar size
to today's elephants. As far as is known, no fossil footprints of this
date - or of any other date - have been identified elsewhere in the
UAE. ADIAS will now recommend the area to the Environmental Research
and Wildlife Development Agency, ERWDA, for formal conservation under
its Protected Areas programme. ... And more fossils ADIAS staff changes At the beginning of May, Daniel Hull, our Resident Archaeologist, left for England, after completing his seven month contract with ADIAS. He will be replaced on October by Dr. Mark Beech, who is currently ADIAS IT Manager (and Website Manager) and is our senior environmental archaeologist. Mark has been working with ADIAS for many years, and last year was awarded his PhD from Britain's University of York for a thesis studying the fish bones found on archaeological sites in the Gulf, including many of the ADIAS sites. Mark's tasks will include the overseeing of the preparation of final reports on some of the earlier work undertaken by ADIAS, so that they can be brought to publication, and also the regular updating of the ADIAS database and its inclusion in the Abu Dhabi Environmental Database being co-ordinated by ERWDA. He will also be continuing studies into the country's environmental archaeology, with particular reference to molluscs and fish, as well as managing our fieldwork surveys and excavations. New Publications Two new publications relating
to ADIAS work have appeared in recent months, dealing with the archaeology
of the fringes of the sabkha areas, and, more specifically, with the
Nestorian monastic settlements on Sir Bani Yas and Marawah. The first,
Introduction to the Archaeology of the sabkhat of Abu Dhabi, by ADIAS
Executive Director Peter Hellyer, is a chapter in a book on the Sabkha
eco-systems of the Arabian Peninsula and adjacent countries, published
by Kluwer Academic Publishers, of Germany. The book, which has a Foreword
by HH Sheikh Hamdan bin Zayed Al Nahyan, in his capacity as Deputy Chairman
of the Environmental Research and Wildlife Development Agency, ERWDA,
also has chapters by ADIAS associates and consultants Professor Graham
Evans and Dr. Tony Kirkham (on the sabkhas themselves), arthropods of
the sabkhas (by Dr. Peter Hogarth), fishes of the sabkha areas (by Dr.
Mark Beech and others) and on saline wetland reserve management and
the birds of sabkhas (by Simon Aspinall). Co-editor of the book is Dr.Benno
Boer, formerly of ERWDA and now with UNESCO. Conference Presentations During April, four papers
were delivered by ADIAS staff and associates to two major conferences.
Locally, the Conference of the GCC Archaeology and History Society,
held in Sharjah, heard papers from Peter Hellyer, on results of recent
survey work in North-East Abu Dhabi, and by Daniel Hull, on the Jebel
Dhanna sulphur mines. Work in both areas was undertaken with the support
of the Abu Dhabi Company for Onshore Oil Operations, ADCO. The other
conference, on the Archaeology of the Middle East, was held in Paris.
Papers were delivered by Elizabeth Shepherd and Dr. Robert Carter on
the results of our work at the 'Ubaid-related site on Dalma island,
and will be published in due course in the Proceedings of the conference. More news soon! |