Middle and Late Pleistocene lithic technology from the region of Dûmat al-Jandal, northern Saudi Arabia
Keywords:
Lower Palaeolithic bifaces, Middle Palaeolithic Levallois technology, Upper Palaeolithic blade technology, settlement pattern, Arabian lithic technologyAbstract
We present here the results of the prehistoric survey seasons undertaken in 2013 and 2015 in the region of Dûmat al-Jandal in the Al-Jawf Province of northern Saudi Arabia. During the survey, 136 prehistoric sites, from the Middle Pleistocene to the Early Holocene have been located, mapped, and sampled. Middle and Late Pleistocene sites were classified as Lower, Middle, and Upper Palaeolithic/Epipalaeolithic based on lithic typo-technological criteria. Archaeological sites, in most cases surface lithic scatters, were recorded using various attributes, such as raw material availability, general topographic location, and state of preservation. The lithics from the Al-Jawf Province will be discussed, first within a regional framework and then in an extended intra-regional context. Given the geographical location of the study area, its vicinity to better explored regions of the Levant and to the only land bridge connecting Africa and Eurasia, the archaeological record described here greatly adds to the growing body of data from the Arabian Palaeolithic. The archaeological evidence from the recorded sites provides a general overview of the deep chronological past and technological diversity found across northern Arabia.
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