沙特阿拉伯宪政历程的源头--自由亲王运动

"自由亲王"是沙特阿拉伯现代化发展初期的第三种政治力量,是沙特阿拉伯经历从传统君主制到"发展的独裁模式"之历史性变革的重要推手。自由亲王运动根源于石油时代沙特阿拉伯经济社会秩序的变动,在沙特阿拉伯首次提出宪政民主等现代政治理念并尝试付诸实践,由此成为沙特阿拉伯宪政历程的源头,对沙特阿拉伯政治现代化的发展具有启蒙意义,预示着沙特阿拉伯政治现代化进程的发展方向。     

Polylinear incursions and autochthonous adaptations: Neolithisation and sustainable sedentarisation of the Arabian Peninsula

This contribution’s broad and in parts essayistic approach to Arabia’s Neolithic is less a discussion of findings than an explicit advocacy for future holistic research strategies. Based on the contribution’s meta-theoretical inputs, it suggests two sets of theses to be tested by the hitherto gained fragmentary information and future research on Arabia’s Neolithic. It aims to encourage an “emancipation” of Arabia’s early to mid-Holocene research from conceptions developed outside its regions, and to identify the Neolithic elements and developments of the Arabian lands by distinguishing incursions from primarily autochthonous and/or autonomous adaptations in their own right. It is suggested that productive lifeways are considered to be the only crucial parameter to testify a Neolithic status. In our view this is the case, provokingly enough, for the productive foraging management of natural resources which attests surplus and pre-planning strategies and contacts with established Neolithic socio-economies. Polylinear incursions and autochthonous adaptations are discussed as the two poles between which early to mid-Holocene developments in Arabia took place. A set of basic and a set of trajectory hypotheses on Arabia’s neolithisation and finally sustainable sedentarisation (reliance on oases economies) is presented, offered as a possible framework for future multi-/ transdisciplinary research.     

Specialization and social inequality in Bronze Age SE Arabia: analyzing the development of production strategies and economic networks using agent-based modeling

This paper investigates the role of specialized production strategies in the development of socio-economic inequalities in Bronze Age south-eastern (SE) Arabia, and particularly, the ways in which a localized, internal exchange economy may have produced stress and instability in the SE Arabian socio-economic system. While archaeological research has established that the communities of SE Arabia participated in a widespread Bronze Age exchange system that included areas of the ancient Near East, South Asia, and Central Asia, it is unclear to what degree this interaction fostered the broad-scale socio-economic changes seen in the Early Bronze Age of SE Arabia. Here we present the results of an agent-based model that suggest the nature of the internal exchange economy in SE Arabia itself may have precipitated the social conditions necessary for change by allowing individuals to profit disproportionately. We thus emphasize the importance of local production strategies in generating socio-economic change, in addition to the well-established economic and cultural contacts with the wider Bronze Age world.     

European trade ceramics on the Arabian Peninsula 1800–1960

European trade ceramics found across Arabia date from the 19th and first half of the 20th centuries and were made at factories mostly located within northwest Europe. After c. 1930, imitations of European ceramics are increasingly represented from factories in Japan and later China. Combining the information from archaeological excavations on the Arab coast of the Gulf and ceramics from museum and private collections, information from the archives of the British India Office and the Maastricht pottery order books for Arabia, a relatively detailed overview of this market for trade ceramics can be reconstructed. Three key points may be highlighted: First, the complex routes via which European ceramics arrived within Arabia, second, the significance of the link between producers and consumers on opposite sides of the globe, exemplified by specific designs and types of vessels manufactured for the Arabian market, and third, new layers of meaning that were given to such objects as they were incorporated into the homes, social fabric and the lives of people in Arabia.     

Des coquillages… outillages des Ichtyophages? Mise en évidence d'industries sur Veneridae,du Néolithique à l’âge du Fer (Yémen,Oman, E.A.U.)

From Yemen to the Arabian/Persian Gulf the coastal societies of Arabia developed an industry utilising bivalve shells (Veneridae). From the Neolithic to the Iron Age these shells were transformed into knives or scrapers, the latter sometimes having a characteristic notch. The majority of these tools are manufactured from the left valve, probably selected by right-handed people. The shell tools are very standardised and did not replace stone tools; they were probably intended for specific and complementary uses. In Arabia this industry constitutes a specific element of the material culture of the Ichthyophagi .     

Food for eternity? The analysis of a date offering from a 3rd millennium BC grave at Hili N,Abu Dhabi (United Arab Emirates)

Ever since the early 3rd millennium BC the date palm (Phoenix dactylifera) has played an important role in eastern Arabia where its remains, in the form of seeds, fruits and stem fragments, are preserved on numerous archaeological sites. The recent discovery of a carbonised mass of pitted dates in a collective burial pit from the end of the Umm an-Nar period (ca. 2200–2000 BC) at Hili (United Arab Emirates) constitutes the earliest example of a food preparation involving this species. The present paper describes the discovery and identification of this unique offering before addressing the question of its significance in a funeral context in Bronze Age Arabia.     

The War on Terror from the Perspective of Indonesia and Saudi Arabia

This article examines the perspective of two major Islamic nations—Saudi Arabia and Indonesia—toward the United States' War on terror and how this war shaped and influenced the behavior of the two Islamic governments toward domestic challenges and their partnership with the United States, as they have declared their support of the United States. Indeed the war against terror has developed several security concerns for both Saudi Arabia and Indonesia. However, each state has followed different methods to fight Islamic radical movements as well as a different framework of partnership with the United States on its war against terrorism.     

First discovery of ancient soft‐stone (chlorite) vessel production in Arabia: Aqir al‐Shamoos (Oman)

Soft‐stone vessels are a prominent feature of ancient culture throughout south‐east Arabia and the Gulf. Chlorite and steatite occur naturally in the al‐Hajar Mountains of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Oman; but until now, apart from the discovery of a few unfinished pieces, ancient production of soft‐stone vessels had yet to be documented in Arabia. This paper reports the discovery and preliminary analysis of soft‐stone vessel production at the site of Aqir al‐Shamoos. At this small and secluded mountain village, a range of soft‐stone vessels that are well known in the south‐east Arabian Iron Age were produced on a scale far beyond what was needed for local consumption.     

The Coverage of Saudi Arabia in the “Introduction to Sociology” U.S. Textbooks between 2001 and 2015

This article discusses the coverage of Saudi Arabia in “introduction to sociology” textbooks in the context of two variables — the September 11, 2001 attack, and globalization. The study covers 24 major textbooks, all published between 2001 and 2015. The textbooks were chosen with the help and consultation of many colleagues in numerous sociology departments throughout various parts of the United States. Also, the publishers of sociology textbooks were consulted throughout the process of selection. The method of investigation was content analysis which relied heavily upon studying the content of the text. The findings were organized in the following subsections: Islam; the Wahhabi version of Islam; Politics; September 11th and Bin Laden; Women in Saudi Arabia; Human Rights and Civil Rights Abuses; Social Media; Miscellaneous Positive or neutral comments on Saudi Arabia; Visual Sociology; and closing remarks. The finding of the article is more or less negative, as textbooks rarely mentioned positive things about Saudi Arabia.     

The terracotta figurines from ed-Dur (Umm al-Qaiwain, U.A.E.): The animal representations

Ten fragments of animal figurines from ed-Dur, the largest site of the 1^st century A.D. in southeastern Arabia, are published and compared with material from other sites in the Near East. The figurines are discussed in light of broader issues relating to the representation of birds and animals in pre-Islamic Arabia.     

Games on the seashore of Salalah: the discovery of mancala games in Dhofar,Sultanate of Oman

During the 2013 fieldwork of the French archaeological mission along the shores of the Arabian Sea, mancala games were discovered on the seashore of Salalah at the site of Ad‐Dahariz. They are cup‐hole carvings made directly into rock slabs and distributed in six distinct zones of the site. They usually consist of fourteen cup‐holes aligned in two lines of seven, two supplementary holes being sometimes present on each side. They are the first of their kind in South Arabia and can be compared to similar configurations of carved games elsewhere in Arabia, such as at Jebel al‐Jassasiya, Qatar. This paper presents the potential origins of this game in the region, as well as a plausible dating of their use.     

Dilmun stamp seals and the royal cap

It will be argued in this article that the specific shape of the stamp seals used around 2000 BC in eastern Arabia (ancient Dilmun) was charged with a meaning that can be retrieved when viewed within a culturally and historically specific situation (1).     

The Middle Palaeolithic of the Nejd,Saudi Arabia

The Pleistocene archaeological record of the Arabian Peninsula is increasingly recognized as being of great importance for resolving some of the major debates in hominin evolutionary studies. Though there has been an acceleration in the rate of fieldwork and discovery of archaeological sites in recent years, little is known about hominin occupations in the Pleistocene over vast areas of Arabia. Here we report on the identification of five new Middle Palaeolithic sites from the Nejd of central Arabia and the southern margins of the Nefud Desert to the north. The importance of these sites centers on their diversity in terms of landscape positions, raw materials used for lithic manufacture, and core reduction methods. Our findings indicate multiple hominin dispersals into Arabia and complex subsequent patterns of behavior and demography.     

Pre-Alexandrine Phoenician staters from northeastern Arabia

Five Phoenician staters from northeastern Saudi Arabia, four of them previously unpublished, are presented and discussed. The potential significance of Phoenician material in this region is treated briefly.     

Dibba: an ancient port on the Gulf of Oman in the early Roman era

In this paper recent archaeological evidence from the port city of Dibba in the United Arab Emirates is presented. Finds of both ceramics and elite objects detail the extensive maritime trade network that connected this part of Arabia with the broader Indian Ocean World.