Joint Saudi-French expedition uncovers new 100.000 old archaeological sites in southern Riyadh

[Saif al-Arab]

Joint Saudi-French expedition uncovers new archaeological sites in southern Riyadh

ARAB NEWS
September 17, 2018

• The expedition was operating under the mandate of the National Authority for Tourism and National Heritage
• SPA said this was the first time sites from the Paleolithic period were discovered in Al-Kharj province

JEDDAH: A joint Saudi-French expedition has uncovered archaeological sites that date back more than 100 thousand years amid a number of mountains in southern Riyadh, specifically in the Kharj province.
The expedition was operating under the mandate of the National Authority for Tourism and National Heritage.
The field survey covered mountainous territory, where the expeditionary team discovered sites that date back to the Stone Age or Paleolithic period in Al-Kharj province, about 100 thousand years ago.
The Saudi Press Agency report said this was the first time sites from the Paleolithic period were discovered in Al-Kharj province, in addition to sites dating back to the Upper Paleolithic period.
The remains of broken pottery, and bracelets made of stained glass were discovered on site.
Also uncovered at the site of Ain Dalea, in southern Al Kharj, was evidence of early human settlement dating back 5000 years.
The 18-member expedition included scientists and archaeologists from both Saudi Arabia and France.

http://www.arabnews.com/node/1373651/saudi-arabia

Saudi-French delegation reveals historical sites dating back to 100,000 years

Broken clay pots, some plain and some painted in green, and a number of broken bracelets made of glass and colored in yellow, red and blue were found. (SPA)

SPA, Riyadh
Monday, 17 September 2018

A Saudi-French delegation for archaeological exploration supervised by the Saudi Commission for Tourism and National Heritage discovered historical sites dating back to about 100,000 years in a number of mountains south of Riyadh in the city of al-Kharj.

The delegation’s field survey included the mountains surrounding al-Kharj overlooking Wadi Nisah and mountains overlooking the town of al-Shadida. The sites date back to the Paleolithic period about 100,000 years ago, and they are the first sites discovered from that period in al-Kharj.

Broken clay pots, some plain and some painted in green, and a number of broken bracelets made of glass and colored in yellow, red and blue were found, as well as pieces of stone bowls and trays.

The delegation, which was made up of 18 scientists and specialists in the field of archaeological excavations, also discovered human remains dating about 5,000 years old. A 56-centimeter long bronze sword was also found from the same period.

The delegation also discovered a number of ancient farms and architectural structures dating back to the fifth century AH, with a number of Arabic inscriptions without punctuation, which is the oldest Islamic writing in the central region of the Arabian Peninsula.

Prince Sultan bin Salman bin Abdulaziz, the chairman of the Saudi Commission for Tourism and National Heritage, had received the delegation at the commission’s headquarters in Riyadh.

Last Update: Monday, 17 September 2018 KSA 13:46 - GMT 10:46

http://english.alarabiya.net/en/lif...ical-sites-dating-back-to-100-000-years-.html

https://twitter.com/x/status/1041611404791476224

Great stuff once again. So much more to uncover. Just a drop in the ocean.

 

[timmy_area51]

can you sum up the findings for us ?

 

[Saif al-Arab]

can you sum up the findings for us ?

I don't know much else other than what the articles mention. I think that pages dealing with archaeology will publish more details soon. It is a recent finding after all.

The oldest skeleton of a human found outside of Africa was also discovered in KSA earlier this year. In general the pre-history of Arabia might be the richest in the world and only a drop in the ocean have been discovered.

Human finger bone fossil found in Saudi Arabia changes the story on human global migration
RN Breakfast
By Stephanie Smail and Mariella Attard

Updated 10 Apr 2018, 7:14am

PHOTO: The fossilised middle finger bone was found at the Al Wusta site, in Saudi Arabia. (Supplied: Ian Cartwright)
RELATED STORY: Oldest modern human fossil outside Africa discovered in Israel
RELATED STORY: When did Australia's human history begin?
Scientists say they have discovered a fossilised human finger bone in the Saudi Arabian desert estimated to be about 85,000 years old.

The Arabian finger bone is the first and earliest homo sapiens fossil found on the Arabian Peninsula, as well as the oldest specimen of the human species to be discovered outside of Africa and its doorstep, the Levant.

Palaeontologist Julien Louys from Griffith University said the discovery showed that modern humans were out of Africa and the nearby Levant region by about 85,000 or 90,000 years ago.

"It really challenges that idea that humans only left 60,000 years ago," he said.

The Nefud Desert is not what it once was
Saudi Arabia's Nefud Desert is vast and dry, and filled with huge shifting sand dunes.

An international research team, including Oxford University scientists and the Saudi Commission for Tourism and National Heritage, has been scouring the region's ancient lake beds for signs of what life was like tens of thousands of years ago.

It was a very different landscape then, with grasslands and lakes hosting animals and humans.


A few dates:

• Human fossils found in north Africa have been dated back to 310,000 years
• A fossilised human jaw bone with teeth found in a cave in northern Israel dates back 180,000 years
• Humans didn't move into Saudi Arabia until tens of thousands of years later

Researchers zeroed in on the site using satellite images, and then looked around.

"These dried lake beds are being exposed by the moving sand dunes, so they're just literally lying on the surface, it's just a matter of looking around and seeing what we can find," Dr Louys said.

PHOTO: Survey and mapping of the Al Wusta site. (Supplied: Klint Janulis)


What they found was a fossilised human finger — the middle bone of the middle finger to be exact.

Using a technique called uranium series dating, the fossil was found to be up to 90,000 years old.

Dr Louys said stone tools and fossils of animals, like oryx and hippopotamus, are relatively common.

"But this is the first time that we've actually found a human fossil in amongst those deposits," he said.

Further tests on the small, well-preserved bone showed it could only belong to a modern human, and CT scans showed the bone was quite "robust".

"We think this robustness basically means they were using their hands a lot," Dr Louys said.

"And that makes sense when you think these guys are making [and using] stone tools so they're really using their hands to do a lot of hard, manual labour."

We moved because of climate change

The human trip from Africa to Australia

1. Head through north-east Africa, into the Levant
2. Travel down the Arabian peninsula
3. Move into south Asia, India
4. Then through south-east Asia (humans remains have been found in Sumatra from around 62,000 to 72,000 years ago)
5. Transfer to a boat
6. Arrive in Australia 65,000 years ago

Source: Dr Julien Louys, Paleontologist, Griffith University (Australian Research Centre for Human Evolution) on RN Breakfast



The finding indicates modern humans travelled to follow kinder climates, but they did not stay indefinitely.

It also suggests that as the climate changed and the region dried up and became desert, humans moved on, along with other animals, to places where the climate was good.

"It really speaks to the flexibility of our species," Dr Louys said.

Other remains found at the site, like animal bones with cut marks on them and stone tools, are signs the humans relied on the animals for food.

PHOTO: General view of the excavations at the Al Wusta site, Saudi Arabia. The ancient lake bed (in white) is surrounded by sand dunes of the Nefud Desert. (Supplied: Michael Petraglia)


"What we think is actually happening is these areas, although they were much better than they are today in terms of environmental conditions, they still would have been relatively dry, so these lakes and waterholes would have attracted all sorts of animals," Dr Louys explained.

"We find things like extinct panthers or hyenas, those sorts of animals … as well as humans.

"Basically, humans followed these better environments all the way till eventually getting to Australia."

Many more lakes to be surveyed
Dr Louys thinks the findings can reveal a lot about humans as a species and how we deal with new situations.

"They're coming up against animals that they've never seen before; environments they've never seen before," he said.

"For me, [it's about] ... what sort of impact humans are having in those new environments."

The research team has only explored a couple of hundred lakes out of 10,000 in the region.

Dr Louys is hoping to return early next year.

The paper was published in the journal Nature: Ecology and Evolution.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-04-10/finger-bone-fossil-found-in-saudi-arabia/9636058




The fossil remains of a Homo sapien finger bone found at the Al Wusta site in northeastern Saudi Arabia
PHOTOGRAPH BY IAN CARTWRIGHT

88,000-Year-Old Finger Bone Pushes Back Human Migration Dates
The find, from a prehistoric lake site in Saudi Arabia, challenges the idea that modern humans did not leave Africa until 60,000 years ago.


PUBLISHED APRIL 9, 2018


MORE THAN 85,000 years ago, the Arabian peninsula looked very different from the vast, sandy expanse people see today.

The region was a lush grassland, seasonally greening with every rainy period, and dotted by hundreds of freshwater lakes. Researchers have found evidence in the sands of aquatic- and semi-aquatic mammals, such as hippos, which are more commonly associated with the African subcontinent. They've also found stone tools the suggest an early human presence on the peninsula, but no direct fossil evidence—until now.

A single human finger bone discovered in 2016 at an ancient lake site in Saudi Arabia called Al Wusta has now been dated to approximately 88,000 years ago, according to a new study in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution.




White sediment found at Al Wusta indicates that the site was once the location of a freshwater lake.

PHOTOGRAPH BY KLINT JANULIS


To find the remains of Saudi Arabia's distant, greener past, archaeologists began by looking at satellite images of the region for evidence of prehistoric bodies of fresh water.


“We have found 10,000 ancient lakes in Arabia. We have visited about 200, and about 80 percent have evidence of archaeology,” says Michael Petraglia of the Max Planck Institute, the project leader and an author on the new paper that details the find.

Many of the region's lakes would have been seasonal, notes Petraglia, periodically shrinking during dry seasons and refilling during the monsoon season. Al Wusta, however, was likely a year-round source of fresh water. According to study co-author Huw Groucutt, archaeologists have also found hundreds of stone tool fragments at the Al Wusta lake site.

Early Exit
Exactly when humans began to leave Africa is a matter of debate among archaeologists and paleoanthropologists. Many say there is no reliable evidence for mass migration north and east out of the African subcontinent until 60,000 years ago.

In 2007, Petraglia controversially argued that modern humans were present as far east as India by 74,000 years ago.

“I’ve been embroiled in debates for more than 10 years,” he says.

“We were arguing that Homo sapiens made it to Southern Asia before that date. That was based on stone tools, but I couldn’t support that with fossils,” he adds.


In 2014, he set his sights on the Arabian Peninsula. As a former grassland that could have supported hunter-gatherers, he theorized it would have been a natural stepping stone out of Africa.

Early human fossils found in Morocco place humans in western Africa 300,000 years ago, but few fossils have been found outside the continent from before 60,000 years ago. Then, in January, a 180,000-year-old human jaw bone was found in Israel.

Both Petraglia and Groucutt say the human finger bone found in Saudi Arabia hints at more geographically diverse human migration than previously estimated.

“We’ve been to maybe a hundred different sites in Arabia, and almost every one has stone tools,” says Groucutt. “You can’t step out of a car without finding stone tools. The challenge was finding somewhere with human remains.”

The research team knows little else about the inch-long bone. Whether it belonged to a male or female and the age of the human it belonged to can't be determined without more evidence.

“Whether this finger bone came from a modern human, I just don’t think that one bone is enough to tell,” cautions John Hawks, an anthropologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who was not involved with the study. “So it’s too soon to say that this is the record of modern human dispersal.”

“I think it shows clearly that we should be exploring much more in the Arabian peninsula, as there will be more discoveries there.”

More Finds to Come

Petraglia agrees that Saudi Arabia, which only recently expanded access to the kingdom for foreign scientific teams, offers great potential for more significant discoveries.

“Every season we have there, we make a new discovery,” he says. “We have very big plans to continue this work on ancient lakes, and we’re going to expand our work into caves as well. It's a gold mine.”

https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/04/saudi-arabia-finger-human-migration-homo/

 

[Imran Khan]

WTH people were doing here 100000 years ago ?

 

[Saif al-Arab]

WTH people were doing here 100000 years ago ?

The first humans that originated in Ethiopia/Eastern Africa (our ancestors apparently) moved to Arabia and from Arabia (after living in Arabia for 10.000's of years) to the remaining world.

That is why Arabia's prehistory is so rich and practically unmatched even though only a drop in the ocean have been discovered. Yet what has been discovered so far has changed human history.

Arabia (richest place in the world in terms of natural resources and minerals) was also very rich back then and home to the largest network of rivers in the world and the third largest lake in the world.

That is why it was ideal for human habitation and evolvement before humans travelled to the remaining parts of the world.








https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0069665

https://www.andrewlawler.com/in-search-of-green-arabia/

https://www.researchgate.net/post/A..._largest_river_any_official_names_for_the_two

http://www.ecoseeds.com/juicy.gossip.fourteen.html

 

[Saif al-Arab]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1041199960098840576

 

[AZADPAKISTAN2009]

I am glad Humans discovered , Laptops otherwise we would all have to carry large boulders