The Nubian complex of Dhofar, Oman: an African Middle Stone Age industry in Southern Arabia

Authors

Jeffrey I. Rose, University of Birmingham
Vitaly I. Usik, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine
Anthony E. Marks, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, USA
Yamandu H. Hilbert, University of Birmingham
Christopher S. Galletti, Arizona State University
Ash Parton, Oxford Brooke University, Oxford, UK
Jean Marie Geiling, University of Tubingen
Viktor Cerny, Institute of Archaeology of the Academy of Science
Mike W. Morley, Oxford Brooke University, Oxford, UK
Richard Roberts, University of WollongongFollow

RIS ID

43955

Publication Details

Rose, J. I., Usik, V. I., Marks, A. E., Hilbert, Y. H., Galletti, C. S., Parton, A., Geiling, J. Marie., Cerny, V., Morley, M. W. & Roberts, R. G. (2011). The Nubian complex of Dhofar, Oman: an African Middle Stone Age industry in Southern Arabia. PLoS ONE, 6 (11), e28239.

Abstract

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. C 2011 Rose et al.