Anthony E. Marks

The Southern Route “Out of Africa”: Evidence for an Early Expansion of Modern Humans into Arabia

Artifacts in eastern Arabia dating to 100,000 years ago imply that modern humans left Africa early, as climate fluctuated. The timing of the dispersal of anatomically modern humans (AMH) out of Africa is a fundamental question in human evolutionary studies. Existing data suggest a rapid coastal exodus via the Indian Ocean rim around 60,000 years ago. We present evidence from Jebel Faya, United Arab Emirates, demonstrating human presence in eastern Arabia during the last interglacial. The tool kit found at Jebel Faya has affinities to the late Middle Stone Age in northeast Africa, indicating that technological innovation was not necessary to facilitate migration into Arabia. Instead, we propose that low eustatic sea level and increased rainfall during the transition between marine isotope stages 6 and 5 allowed humans to populate Arabia. This evidence implies that AMH may have been present in South Asia before the Toba eruption (1).

The Nubian Complex of Dhofar, Oman: An African Middle Stone Age Industry in Southern Arabia

Despite the numerous studies proposing early human population expansions from Africa into Arabia during the Late Pleistocene, no archaeological sites have yet been discovered in Arabia that resemble a specific African industry, which would indicate demographic exchange across the Red Sea. Here we report the discovery of a buried site and more than 100 new surface scatters in the Dhofar region of Oman belonging to a regionally-specific African lithic industry - the late Nubian Complex - known previously only from the northeast and Horn of Africa during Marine Isotope Stage 5, ∼128,000 to 74,000 years ago. Two optically stimulated luminescence age estimates from the open-air site of Aybut Al Auwal in Oman place the Arabian Nubian Complex at ∼106,000 years ago, providing archaeological evidence for the presence of a distinct northeast African Middle Stone Age technocomplex in southern Arabia sometime in the first half of Marine Isotope Stage 5.

The Paleolithic of Arabia in an Inter-regional Context

Very little is known about the Paleolithic of Arabia. In spite of surveys undertaken immediately after the initial exploration of this environmentally marginal region (e.g., Philby, 1933; Caton-Thompson, 1939) and a small but continuous trickle of prehistorians into Arabia over the past 60 years, knowledge of both Arabian Pleistocene occupations and paleoenvironments is woefully poor, compared to what is known about adjacent regions. The reasons for this are myriad, ranging from the absence of extant, large karstic caves with deeply stratified sediments (the highly preferred Paleolithic site type of the twentieth century), to truly difficult logistics, and, until recently, a lack of encouragement from local authorities. Still, prehistorians did try and virtually all found some materials they could attribute to the Paleolithic (e.g., Caton-Thompson, 1954; Van Beek et al., 1963; Gramly, 1971; Pullar, 1974; Inizan and Ortlieb, 1987; Whalen and Pease, 1990; McBrearty, 1993).

Tool Standardization in the Middle and Upper Palaeolithic: a Closer Look (with comments)

It has been postulated that one difference between Neanderthals and anatomically modern people lies in a ‘clearer mental template’ of flaked stone tools on the part of modern people. This is thought to have been manifested in greater tool standardization during the Upper Palaeolithic than in the Middle Palaeolithic. Testing of this hypothesis, using three samples of a characteristic Upper Palaeolithic tool class — burins — from one Middle Palaeolithic and two Upper Palaeolithic assemblages, reveals that they are equally standardized for both metric and non-metric traits. Further consideration suggests that most Palaeolithic flaked stone tools are poorly suited to test notions of standardization, although some tool attributes may be well suited when considered in specific adaptive contexts.