Lithic and stone industries of Bahra 1, an Ubaid-related site in northern Kuwait

Abstract

Bahra 1 is a large site in the north of the Arabian Peninsula that provided an assemblage of nearly 100,000 lithic artefacts. The whole lithic industry of Bahra 1 represents a set of well-thought-out flint, quartz and stone tools for the mass production of shell jewellery, with only a small share of typical household tools. They mostly relate to the Ubaid tradition with Arabian Neolithic influences. However, limited excavations of the oldest occupational layers of the site also revealed an Epipalaeolithic Zarzian tradition. This paper presents a techno-typological, functional and cultural characteristic of the whole Bahra 1 chipped and ground stone industry identified during the excavations at the site in 2009–2019.