The earliest cylinder seal in the Arabian Peninsula

A cylinder seal of Late Uruk (late fourth millennium BC) type from Abu Dhabi is presented and analysed. Comparisons with excavated finds from elsewhere in the Near East are discussed. An inventory of cylinder seals from sites in the UAE and the Sultanate of Oman shows that cylinder seal use, while not unknown in the region, was never very great. The ways in which the seal may have arrived at its eventual place of discovery are described and the significance of the seal is assessed.     

The earliest cylinder seal in the Arabian Peninsula

A cylinder seal of Late Uruk (late fourth millennium BC) type from Abu Dhabi is presented and analysed. Comparisons with excavated finds from elsewhere in the Near East are discussed. An inventory of cylinder seals from sites in the UAE and the Sultanate of Oman shows that cylinder seal use, while not unknown in the region, was never very great. The ways in which the seal may have arrived at its eventual place of discovery are described and the significance of the seal is assessed.     

Cylinder seals and their use in the Arabian Peninsula

Cylinder seals were used in the ancient Near East from the fourth to the first millennium BC. Although the numbers known from sites in the Arabian Peninsula seem relatively small, more have been found there than is generally recognised. A comprehensive overview of the cylinder seals of Arabia is presented, and the cylinder and stamp sealing traditions of the region are discussed.     

The adoption of cattle pastoralism in the Arabian Peninsula: A reappraisal

The translocation of livestock into the Arabian Peninsula was underway by the sixth millennium BC. It remains unclear, however, whether nascent pastoralism in Arabia focused on specialised cattle herding, intensive caprine husbandry, or more extensive forms of sheep, goat and cattle management. Here, the role of Bos in Neolithic animal exploitation systems in the Arabian Peninsula is re-examined in the context of fisher-hunter-gatherer groups inhabiting the coasts of the Arabian Gulf, agro-pastoralist settlements located in the Jordanian highlands, and hunter-herder communities in adjacent Jordanian steppe (badia). By the late sixth millennium BC, cattle from southern Mesopotamia were imported to the Arabian littoral via Ubaid exchange networks but remained a relatively unimportant part of local hunter-gatherer-herder subsistence for at least a millennium. New zooarchaeological evidence indicating cattle herding in the Jordanian highlands by the late eighth millennium BC suggests a southern transmission route originating out of Late Pre-Pottery Neolithic B settlements and the subsequent spread of cattle along the Sarawat mountains into the interior or down the relatively arid Red Sea coast via land or boat. Cattle eventually played a central role in the symbolic and ritual lives of herders in southern Arabia, but the use of the term ‘cattle pastoralism’ to describe early Neolithic subsistence systems in the region is premature.     

The Lower Paleolithic of the Arabian Peninsula: Occupations,Adaptations, and Dispersals

To understand major processes of human evolution during the Plio- Pleistocene, it is necessary to consider the available evidence from key regions of the Old World. The Arabian peninsula is often depicted as a key geographic route for hominin dispersals in Out of Africa models, although the available primary evidence is rarely cited. And yet, significant Lower Paleolithic assemblages have been identified in many parts of the peninsula, including in areas near the Strait of Bab al Mandab. The presence of Oldowan-like and Acheulean assemblages may reflect at least two major dispersals outside of Africa. Acheulean localities are particularly abundant on the Arabian peninsula, and variations in stone tool manufacturing techniques and tool-type frequencies may reflect temporal changes in assemblages. Although there is good potential to chronometrically date sites in the Arabian peninsula, absolute dating methods have not been adequately applied, most temporal reconstructions relying on typotechnological change. If the Arabian peninsula is to provide solid evidence for understanding hominin adaptation and dispersal patterns, future fieldwork in secure depositional contexts needs to be conducted to overcome current limits in dating and environmental reconstructions.     

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.     

Islam in Tribal societies

Ahmed, Akbar S., and David M. Hart, eds. Islam in Tribal Societies: From the Atlas to the Indus. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1984. vii + 343 pp. including chapter references and index. $21.95 paper.     

婚俗土尔扈特蒙古族

一年前,巴义尔的父母和亲戚带着礼物来到了萨日娜家的蒙古包提亲,请求萨日娜做他们的儿媳.其实,两位年轻人从小就在一块草原上长大,巴义尔一直把萨日娜当成自己的妹妹一样照顾.家乡的开都河九曲十八弯,萨日娜也女大十八变,越变越好看,巴义尔的父母看在眼里,喜在心上,特意找到当地寺庙的喇嘛,算出他们属相相和,长相般配,于是有了顺利的提亲结果.     

Alabaster Beehive-Shaped Vessels from the Arabian Peninsula: Interpretations from a Comparative Study of Characteristics, Contexts and Associated Finds

This paper catalogues seventy-two vessels of one typologically distinct'beehive-shaped'form commonly found on sites in the Arabian peninsula. It shows that they are dated principally from the third century BC to the first century AD and are predominantly from burials. The majority have been found in southwest Arabia which is most probably their area of origin and many can be traced back to the Royal Tombs of'Awsan in Wadi Markha. Of interest are a pair of almost identical'double'vessels from Thaj and Mleiha in eastern Arabia and a group of'large'vessels indicating a temple context. From a study of their characteristics and contexts conclusions indicate that the original contents were tightly enclosed, of a dry or stain-free nature and that they were highly prized. The evidence together with some written sources give clues as to what these receptacles may have contained.     

Shell Middens, Ships and Seeds: Exploring Coastal Subsistence, Maritime Trade and the Dispersal of Domesticates in and Around the Ancient Arabian Peninsula

The Arabian Peninsula occupies a critical position at the intersect of several major Old World landmasses. Inland aridity and a major coastal perimeter have long made maritime activities critical to Arabia’s cultural trajectory. A wealth of recent studies, not previously synthesised, suggest not only that the peninsular littoral offered a rich resource base for thousands of years of human occupation in the region, but also that Arabia witnessed some of the world’s earliest seafaring and maritime exchange activities, and played a role in Bronze Age maritime trade that has often been underestimated. Maritime activities were closely linked to developments in agriculture, which not only fuelled trade and exchange, but were also impacted on by the dispersal of domesticates along early maritime corridors. While regional specialisation has to some degree prevented consideration of the maritime prehistory of the peninsula as a whole, it is clear that there are interesting parallels, as well as important differences, between cultural trajectories in different parts of the peninsula.     

元史北方部族表

<正>题记:明修《元史》无《部族表》。其后钱大昕作《元史氏族表》二卷。屠寄《蒙兀儿史记》有《蒙兀氏族表》、《色目氏族表》各二卷之作;柯劭忞《新元史》有《氏族表》二卷之作,用力皆在详少数部族之世次,而不及全数之搜罗。爰仿《辽史》,作《元史北方部族表》,尽列其时活动在北方之诸部族而稍作考证说明,治元史者或亦有助焉。     

莫宁顿半岛 美不胜收的度假胜地

正莫宁顿半岛位于澳大利亚维多利亚州,这个熙熙攘攘的岛屿是墨尔本人南下的夏日度假胜地。这里充满浪漫、休闲、享乐和探险的气氛,无论你的爱好是什么,莫宁顿半岛总有层出不穷的体验等着你!从墨尔本出发仅1小时车程就能到达莫宁顿半岛,一路上延绵起伏的山丘、牧场和漂亮的房子映入眼帘,美不胜收。地中海式的风景与浪漫,对墨尔本富人来说,他们会在莫宁顿半岛购买或建造一幢度假别墅,对一般的市民而言,他们会全家一起去莫宁顿半岛度假或开着房车住上几天,所以沿海岸边的房车基地在假期总是满满当当的。     

Early Neolithic Agriculture in the Iberian Peninsula

The spread of agriculture in the Iberian Peninsula is documented from at least ca. 5600–5500BC, although botanical data are absent or very limited for large areas. Archaeobotanical information shows from the beginning an imported agrarian system with a great diversity of crops: hulled and naked wheats and barleys, legumes such as pea, lentil, fava bean, vetches and grass peas, flax and poppy. This diversity of plants with different requirements, processing and uses, implies that the first farmers quickly imported or acquired a wide range of agrarian knowledge. Regional and inter-site agrarian differences are discussed in relation to factors like ecology, culture, use of the cultivated plants and management of the risk of crop failure. The adoption of farming resulted in significant ecological, economic, dietary, and social changes for the Neolithic people of Iberia.