Evrim Yazgin
Cosmos science journalist
Archaeologists have found stones shaped into blades by ancient humans near the town of Al Madam in the United Arab Emirates.
The 80,000-year-old remains are the oldest example of stone blade production on the Arabian Peninsula. The researchers say that the characteristic long flakes with parallel edges suggest the blades were made by Homo sapiens – modern humans.
The discovery supports the theory that southern Arabia was one of the routes taken by early Homo sapiens out of Africa.
Prior research has shown that humans lived in the region 200,000 years ago. The oldest evidence of humans living on the peninsula is a set of fossilised footprints dating to about 120,000 years ago.
The new research, published in the journal Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences, describes more than 1,500 ancient artefacts at the site called Jebel Faya.
It suggests that Jebel Faya was once a rock shelter used by humans during the Middle Palaeolithic – a period which lasted between 250,000 and 30,000 years ago.
The authors describe differences between the technologies used by ancient humans around the same time in Arabia’s north. Northern finds have more in common with finds from northern Africa and the Levant.
The archaeologists note that the Jebel Faya finds sit within a period of higher temperatures and humidity than today – the last interglacial period before the last ice age. During this time, the climate would have been wetter and sea levels globally would have been higher than today.
They suggest that areas in the southern Arabian Peninsula could have been refuges for ancient humans.
About 80,000 years ago, these favourable weather conditions in southern Arabia ended. This may have pushed early humans further north, rather than back to Africa.
This migration might explain why no human skeleton remains from the Palaeolithic have been found in southern Arabia.
