Dubai Palaeolith No3

[Sunny]

Another Palaeolithic form my time in Dubai. I think from design this is perhaps middle Palaeolithic or even later.

[JoshinMO]

Is it an artifact?

[Sunny]

JoshinMO wrote:

Is it an artifact?

  Definitely.  Its a handaxe (biface).  The type of rock is very hard to work and if you were to see the natural and how it fractures then you too would be in no doubt.  I don't think the crap quality of my pictures helps though!
The difficulty - for the Palaeolithic hominids of this area - was a lack of suitable material for tools.  There are no local cherts or flint.  This form of igneous rock is called Ophiolite and has a microcrystalline structure and not conchoidal.  Thus making it very difficult to work. 
But the consistency of manufacture is astonishing.  The axes recovered fall in to several distinct forms.  The weathering on some types and the depth of the excavations that brought them up are good markers for earlier deposition and earlier occupation.  The type in the photo is of a later design type, but not the most recent. 
Occupation of this area of the world has been proven to MIS 5a through to MIS 5e; from what little research I have done.  So over 100, 000 years.  To suggest that earlier phases of occupation should have reached Europe (further away from Africa than Arabia) and not this area would be unlikely.  I would have thought that occupation in that area would reasonably go back to 600Ka or even earlier. 
There are small pebbles of chert like material to be found in the desert of this area, but they are exclusively small and only the biggest (the size of golf balls) were later used by Mesolithic/Neolithic hunters to make flake tools and microliths.  In my extensive searching I never found any pieces of the chert large enough for Palaeolithic use.
Don't get me wrong, I would dearly have loved for these bifaces to have been picture perfect examples, like we see from flint rich parts of Europe, but they are not.  I don't suppose the makers cared for the material much either, but theirs was a functional survival need and not aesthetic.

[painshill]

The datings and attribution here seem somewhat presumptuous. Evidence for human occupation on the Arabian Peninsula is generally thin on the ground. Neolitihic presenc e back to around 7,500 years ago is well-established but Palaeolithic presence rather less so… and from a very limited number of sites. .. in that area of UAE, most notably at Jebel Faya (the first site with a clear indication of dating).
Uerpmann reported that “below the layers containing stone tools from the Neolithic period, however, there were at least four, possibly five, deeper layers, containing stone tools from the Palaeolithic period”. Subsequent OSL testing of artefacts indicated a dating back to around 85,000 years ago with depositions at several intervals from then onwards, up to around 28,000 years ago. The bedrock is still about 2 meters below the current level of excavation, so that 85,000 year date may well push back rather further.
Julie Scott-Jackson et al subsequently reported three distinct lithic assemblages, of which assemblage C (the oldest) yielded OSL dates of 127 ±16 (1SE uncertainties), 123 ±10, and 95 ±13 kya.
Sally McBrearty also reported lithic artefacts from Jebel Barakah in 1993 (there are now 5 known sites in the area) which will probably date to the same kind of era since the typology of the industry looks very similar, although I haven’t seen confirmed dates.
At both localities, it is not the case that suitable material for knapping was not available and it’s not such a lithic-poor area as you imagine. The numerous artefacts at Jebel Barakah (McBrearty’s initial finds) were produced from good quality flint or chert with black to blue-black patina; those from subsequent sites at Jebel Barakah/Faya were also from flints/cherts but paler and of lesser quality.
What we can say about the technologies in use is that they are utterly dominated by radial flaking of the Levallois kind. It looks like a Mousterian (Neanderthal) industry with subsequent transition to Acheulean. That’s evident in the cores (some of which are unipolar) and the tools themselves – especially the bifaces. There are foliates, retouched points, end-scrapers, drills, perforators and such in the later sequences but no evidence of any kind of blade industry. The earlier sequences are predominantly bifacial foliates, Levallois flakes, bifacial/handaxe preforms and radial cores. But at both ends of the stratigraphy, unmistakably Levallois.
At the crudest, this kind of thing would be typical (extracts from: The Middle Palaeolithic assemblage of Jebel Barakah in the context of the Arabian Peninsula and adjacent areas [Ghanim Wahida, Walid Yasin Al Tikriti (Al Ain), Mark Beech (Abu Dhabi) -and- Ali al-Meqbali  2012]:


Scott-Jackson also reported an undated imtermediary assemblage at Jebel Faya which she considers to have been some kind of temporary local variation. It has no affinities with the Middle Stone Age or Late Stone Age from East Africa, nor the Upper Palaeolithic from the Levant or the Zagros.
Given the scarcity of even “suspected” Palaeolithic sites and the tiny number of those that have any confirmatory dating technique, then I’m very sceptical I’m afraid. Add to that the evidence we have so far to suggest that Palaeolithic occupants in that area were using Mousterian Levallois tradition and we have no dates before 130,000 years ago then I’m a long way from convinced about those items as bifacial artefacts… Palaeolithic or not and ophiolite or not.

[Sunny]

Roger, thanks for the time and input.
The site being quoted for the chert/poor quality flint (in your link) is 3 hours drive (by some of the best motorways in the world) from Dubai.  I wouldn't discount material being transported that far by Palaeolithic peoples, but on foot that would be several days to a weeks travel. especially over sand without the relatively modern practice of domesticated camels.
I think it highly unlikely that people would have walked a week to two weeks (round trip) just to source stone for their tools.  I would agree that small quantities of better quality axes may have been traded in to the area, but it is more likely that day-to-day tools were made with local stone. In this respect it is basalt (Ophiolite).
The amount of this material is also limited and only makes up a small percentage of the near ground deposits of Dubai.   That which is there will have been derived from rain/flood run-off from the Hajar Mountains, as there are no sources of rock beneath Dubai.  The sand is hundreds of meters deep, with sand overlaying fossilised sand dunes.
There are ancient river channels, from the mountains and one of the most substantial leads directly to what is now Dubai Creek. 
The oonly hills in the area are at Jebel Ali,on the outskirts of Dubai, but this is a massive salt bubble (called a diapir), comprised of Cambrian/pre-Cambrian salt that is being extruded from ancient sea deposits buried very deep underground.  I searched the hill  and no underlying stone has been pushed out on to the surface, as has been seen at other such geological features (hundreds of miles to the west)on the other side of Abu Dhabi.  The one at Jebel Ali did have massive gypsum crystals but no rock other than fossilised sand dune; hundreds of feet thick.  They are currently completing immense earthworks there to build on.  I searched it loads of times.  The north side produced mostly Mesolithic/Neolithic with a few Palaeolithic pieces, but nothing compared to those sites nearer to the city.
The lack of work in to Palaeolithic material in the area is hampered by virtually no archaeological  interest.  They have a department in Abu Dhabi (next Emirate along) but none in Dubai or Sharjah.  I tried to get the Municipality interested, but it was fruitless. 
On the matter of scepticism I think that is a good starting position, it is objective and demands evidence; which is good science. 
If you are going to be passing Hampshire anytime soon then I would happily let you handle the whole assemblage.   Alternately, perhaps we could meet up the next time I head towards your part of the world.  My sister lives in Worthing...which shouldn't be too far from you.  I would happily chuck the lot in the car and bring them along.
Once you have seen and examined them you would be in no doubt of what they are.  With many decades of collecting from this period I am confident of what they are.
I suspect that you are now more intrigued Roger and will be doing some digging.  Which is what I have noted from your history and I know that you are going to be able to help me on this quest.
pm me if you are likely to be in my area anytime soon. It would be a pleasure to meet you  and show you my collection.
cheers
Nick

[painshill]

Yes, I would love to see your collection (and I have things to share too). Let’s fix something up… although this side of Xmas is looking increasingly unlikely at the moment.
As for the lithics, you’re seeing it as people “making do” with what is available in the area where they decide to settle. I see it as (more usually) deciding to settle where the resources are available to support their lifestyle. For a people so dependent on lithic tools it is more usual that they chose locations where there are suitable lithic sources nearby if there is a choice. That’s really the point I was making… there were better choices. The climatology history suggests that the Jebel areas were wetter in those times and eminently suitable for habitation.
It’s interesting that, in France, Neanderthal populations favoured Fontmaure jasper as their lithic source. Not only did that influence their chosen settlement areas but it’s amazing how far from that source we still find tools made from it. Even in settlement areas where there was perfectly serviceable plain grey and brown flint on their doorstep it has sometimes been pretty much ignored as a lithic source in favour of Fontmaure material.
They certainly made bifaces from less “suitable” materials but they’re usually small and exhibit at least some attempt at radial flaking… even if it couldn’t be truly called Levallois. Old habits die hard.




It is frustrating that there has been so little research in the area, and in some cases such research is discouraged (prohibited even) because of the inherent difficulty in acceptance of pre-Islamic history.

[painshill]

PS: for those who don't know what radial flaking and Levallois technique might be, there's a great animation on the Wiki page here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levallois_technique

And this is a classic Mousterian biface made using the technique (this one from near Jerusalem):