Twelve years of the ‘Arabian Seashores’ project: How the extensive investigation of coastal Oman changed the paradigm of the Arabian Neolithic

Abstract

For over a decade, the French mission ‘Archaeology of the Arabian Seashores’ has been exploring the evolution of the Omani coastline, from hunter–gatherers to the rise of complex societies during the crucial passages from the culmination of the Pleistocene to the Early Bronze Age, passing through the Neolithic. The team extensively surveyed the land spreading from the eastern head of Arabia, Ra's al-Hadd and Ra's al-Jinz, to the last villages of Dhofar, including Masirah Island and the Hallaniyyat archipelago, covering 1000 km. Most Final Palaeolithic, Neolithic and Early Bronze Age sites were tested or excavated. A multidisciplinary approach that involves the joint work of archaeologists and geologists was chosen to include the contribution of environmental factors to modifying the equilibriums between the natural environment and human communities through the study of climatic and eustatic fluctuations. The project provided a substantive perspective on the evolution of maritime communities between 10,000 and 2000 bce. Moreover, an interdisciplinary and multiscalar approach for describing and analysing the change in the material culture of this region made it possible to transcend the traditional typology and examine the role of human communities’ interaction.