Description
Book SynopsisThe rugged highlands of southern Yemen are one of the less archaeologically explored regions of the Near East. This final report of survey and excavations by the Roots of Agriculture in Southern Arabia (RASA) Project addresses the development of food production and human landscapes, topics of enduring interest as scholarly conceptualizations of the Anthropocene take shape. Along with data from Manayzah, site of the earliest dated remains of clearly domesticated animals in Arabia, the volume also documents some of the earliest water management technologies in Arabia, thereby anchoring regional dates for the beginnings of pastoralism and of potential farming.
The authors argue that the initial Holocene inhabitants of Wadi Sana were Arabian hunters who adopted limited pastoral stock in small social groups, then expanded their social collectives through sacrifice and feasts in a sustained pastoral landscape. This volume will be of interest to a wide audience of archaeologists including not only those working in Arabia, but more broadly those interested in the ancient Near East, Africa, South Asia, and in Holocene landscape histories generally.
Table of ContentsCONTENTS
List of Figures
List of Tables
Arabic Foreword
Foreword
Acknowledgments
Editors and Contributors
Glossary Conventions
Part I Research Objectives, Geological and Environmental Context
Introduction to Research
Joy McCorriston
Geological and Environmental Background
Joy McCorriston
Paleohydrology, Geomorphology, and Paleoecology
Eric A. Oches, Joshua Anderson, Joy McCorriston, Kenneth Cole, and Michael J. Harrower
Part II Archaeological Survey: Methods and Site Distributions
History of the RASA Survey: Methodologies from Broad Exploration to Intensive Studies
Joy McCorriston and Michael J. Harrower
Topic-Specific Survey Approaches
Joy McCorriston, Michael J. Harrower, and Remy Crassard
Survey Results and Landforms: A Statistical Analysis
Joy McCorriston
Part lll Pleistocene to Early Holocene: Hunter-Foragers and the Introduction of Domesticates
Middle Paleolithic Populations of WadI Sana
Remy Crassard
Manayzah: A Tenninal Pleistocene- Early Holocene Rockshelter Occupation
Remy Crassard, Joy McCorriston, Louise Martin, and Thomas S. Dye
Early Holocene Forager Encampments: Rockshelters and the Gravel Bar Site
Joy McCorriston, Remy Crassard, Dawn Walter, and Louise Martin
Part IV Middle Holocene: A Pastoralist Landscape
Excavations at the Kheshiya Cattle Skull Ring and Neolithic Monument
Joy McCorriston
The Kheshiya Cattle Skull Ring: Zooarchaeological Analyses
Louise Martin with a contribution by Joe Roe
Appendices I to 6
Louise Martin, Lisa Usman, Cecilia Anderung, and Anders Gotherstrom
Neolithic Stone Platforms: Survey and Excavations
Joy McCorriston
Water Management and Irrigation along WadI Sana
Michael J Harrower
Part V Middle to Late Holocene: The Social Life of Pastoralists
Survey and Excavation of Small-Scale Monuments
Joy McCorriston, Michael J Harrower, Tara Steimer-Herbet , Kimberly Williams, and Jennifer Everhart
Rawk: Statue-Menhirs and Anthropomorphic Statues of Ancient WadI 'Idim
Tara Steimer-Herbet
Testing at Munayder (WadI '!dim)
Joy McCorriston
Graffiti and Pictographs
Joy McCorriston, 'Abdal' aziz Bin 'Aqil, and Alessia Prioletta
Part VI Synthesis and Conclusions
A Bayesian Approach to Chronology of the Southern Joi
Joy McCorriston and Thomas S. Dye
Conclusions: A Landscape History of the Southern Joi
Joy McCorriston
Gossary
Index
