Modern humans reached Arabia earlier than thought, new artifacts suggest

[Meshigaud]

Public release date: 27-Jan-2011
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Contact: Natasha Pinol
npinol@aaas.org
202-326-7088
American Association for the Advancement of Science
Modern humans reached Arabia earlier than thought, new artifacts suggest

Humans may have found the Arabian Peninsula as long as 125,000 years ago
Artifacts unearthed in the United Arab Emirates date back 100,000 years and imply that modern humans first left Africa much earlier than researchers had expected, a new study reports. In light of their excavation, an international team of researchers led by Hans-Peter Uerpmann from Eberhard Karls University in Tübingen, Germany suggests that humans could have arrived on the Arabian Peninsula as early as 125,000 years ago — directly from Africa rather than via the Nile Valley or the Near East, as researchers have suggested in the past.

The timing and dispersal of modern humans out of Africa has been the source of long-standing debate, though most evidence has pointed to an exodus along the Mediterranean Sea or along the Arabian coast approximately 60,000 years ago.

This new research, placing early humans on the Arabian Peninsula much earlier, will appear in the 28 January issue of Science, which is published by AAAS, the nonprofit science society.

The team of researchers, including lead author Simon Armitage from Royal Holloway, University of London, discovered an ancient human toolkit at the Jebel Faya archaeological site in the United Arab Emirates. It resembles technology used by early humans in east Africa but not the craftsmanship that emerged from the Middle East, they say. This toolkit includes relatively primitive hand-axes along with a variety of scrapers and perforators, and its contents imply that technological innovation was not necessary for early humans to migrate onto the Arabian Peninsula. Armitage calculated the age of the stone tools using a technique known as luminescence dating and determined that the artifacts were about 100,000 to 125,000 years old.

"These 'anatomically modern' humans — like you and me — had evolved in Africa about 200,000 years ago and subsequently populated the rest of the world," said Armitage. "Our findings should stimulate a re-evaluation of the means by which we modern humans became a global species."

Uerpmann and his team also analyzed sea-level and climate-change records for the region during the last interglacial period, approximately 130,000 years ago. They determined that the Bab al-Mandab Strait, which separates Arabia from the Horn of Africa, would have narrowed due to lower sea-levels, allowing safe passage prior to and at the beginning of that last interglacial period. At that time, the Arabian Peninsula was much wetter than today with greater vegetation cover and a network of lakes and rivers. Such a landscape would have allowed early humans access into Arabia and then into the Fertile Crescent and India, according to the researchers.

"Archaeology without ages is like a jigsaw with the interlocking edges removed — you have lots of individual pieces of information but you can't fit them together to produce the big picture," said Armitage. "At Jebel Faya, the ages reveal a fascinating picture in which modern humans migrated out of Africa much earlier than previously thought, helped by global fluctuations in sea-level and climate change in the Arabian Peninsula."

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This report by Armitage et al. was funded by the Government of Sharjah, the ROCEEH project (Heidelberg Academy of Sciences), Humboldt Foundation, Oxford Brookes University and the German Science Foundation (DFG).

The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is the world's largest general scientific society, and publisher of the journal, Science (www.sciencemag.org) as well as Science Translational Medicine (www.sciencetranslationalmedicine.org) and Science Signaling (www.sciencesignaling.org). AAAS was founded in 1848, and includes some 262 affiliated societies and academies of science, serving 10 million individuals. Science has the largest paid circulation of any peer-reviewed general science journal in the world, with an estimated total readership of 1 million. The non-profit AAAS (www.aaas.org) is open to all and fulfills its mission to "advance science and serve society" through initiatives in science policy; international programs; science education; and more. For the latest research news, log onto EurekAlert!, www.eurekalert.org, the premier science-news Web site, a service of AAAS.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-01/aaft-mhr012111.php

[Meshigaud]

Modern humans may have arrived in the Arabian Peninsula 125,000 years ago



View of northern Jebel Faya, UAE. [Image © Science/AAAS]
Modern humans may have arrived in the Arabian Peninsula 125,000 years ago
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Sunday, January 30, 2011  |  News

Artefacts unearthed in the United Arab Emirates date back 100,000 years and imply that modern humans first left Africa much earlier than researchers had expected, a new study reports.

In light of their excavation, an international team of researchers led by Hans-Peter Uerpmann from Eberhard Karls University in Tübingen, suggests that humans could have arrived on the Arabian Peninsula as early as 125,000 years ago — directly from Africa rather than via the Nile Valley or the Near East, as researchers have suggested in the past. This is 65,000 years earlier than the generally accepted date for the first substantial human migrations beyond Africa, excepting the recent potential find in Israel, which still has to be confirmed, see ( New work casts doubt on Out of Africa theory - 28th Dec 2010).

[Meshigaud]

Assemblage C: Hand axe pre-form. Image © Science/AAAS
A long standing debate

The timing and dispersal of modern humans out of Africa has been the source of long-standing debate, though most evidence has pointed to an exodus along the Mediterranean Sea or along the Arabian coast approximately 60,000 years ago.

This new research, placing early humans on the Arabian Peninsula much earlier, will appear in the 28 January issue of Science.

The team of researchers, including lead author Simon Armitage from Royal Holloway, University of London, discovered an ancient human toolkit at the Jebel Faya archaeological site in the United Arab Emirate of Sharjah. It resembles technology used by early humans in east Africa but not the craftsmanship that emerged from the Middle East, the team say.

[Meshigaud]

Assemblage C: 1, bifacial foliate; 2, Levallois flake; 3, bifacial preform; 4, radial core; and 5, hand axe preform. Image courtesy of Science/AAAS

[Meshigaud]

This toolkit includes relatively primitive hand-axes along with a variety of scrapers and perforators, and its contents imply that technological innovation was not necessary for early humans to migrate onto the Arabian Peninsula. Armitage calculated the age of the stone tools using a technique known as luminescence dating and determined that the artefacts were about 100,000 to 125,000 years old.

“These ‘anatomically modern’ humans — like you and me — had evolved in Africa about 200,000 years ago and subsequently populated the rest of the world,” said Armitage. “Our findings should stimulate a re-evaluation of the means by which we modern humans became a global species.”

Many advocates of this later African departure suspect that a massive eruption of Indonesia’s Mount Toba around 74,000 years ago created a global “volcanic winter” that decimated modern human populations in Africa and rendered the Indian subcontinent uninhabitable for thousands of years.

Finds at Jebel Faya call that scenario into question, Armitage says. By about 130,000 years ago, decreased sea levels narrowed the Bab al-Mandab Strait separating East Africa from southwest Arabia to about 4 kilometres, allowing safe passage, the researchers estimate. Travellers could have then moved through a network of Arabian lakes and rivers created by warm, wet conditions at that time.
Similar technology

The researchers analysed the Palaeolithic stone tools found at the site and discovered that they were technologically similar to tools produced by early modern humans in east Africa, but very different from those produced to the north, in the Levant and the mountains of Iran. This suggests that early modern humans migrated into Arabia directly from Africa and not via the Nile Valley and the Near East.

[Meshigaud]

The location of Jebel Faya, United Arab Emirates, along with key sites mentioned in the text. The dashed line represents the –120-m paleoshoreline, indicating the maximum exposure of land during marine lowstands. [Image © Science/AAAS
The direct route from east Africa to Jebel Faya crosses the southern Red Sea and the flat, waterless Nejd Plateau of the southern Arabian interior, both of which represent major obstacles to human migration. However, Professor Adrian Parker of Oxford Brookes University studied sea-level and climate change records for the region and concluded that the direct migration route may have been passable for brief periods in the past. During Ice Ages, large amounts of water are stored on land as ice, causing global sea-levels to fall. At these times, the Bab al-Mandab seaway of the southern Red Sea narrows considerably, making it easier to cross.

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Jebel Faya rockshelter from above, looking north, showing eboulis blocks from roof collapse and the location of excavation trenches. [Image © Science/AAAS

[Meshigaud]

Natural climate changes at the end of Ice Ages cause rainfall over the Nejd Plateau to increase, making the area habitable. Professor Parker explains: “By 130,000 years ago, sea-level was still about 100m lower than at present while the Nejd Plateau was already passable. There was a brief period where modern humans may have been able to use the direct route from east Africa to Jebel Faya.”

Latest dating methods

Dr Armitage calculated the age of the stone tools at Jebel Faya using a technique called luminescence dating. His ages revealed that modern humans were at Jebel Faya by around 125,000 years ago, immediately after the period in which the Bab al-Mandab seaway and Nejd Plateau were passable.

“Archaeology without ages is like a jigsaw with the interlocking edges removed — you have lots of individual pieces of information but you can’t fit them together to produce the big picture,” said Armitage. “At Jebel Faya, the ages reveal a fascinating picture in which modern humans migrated out of Africa much earlier than previously thought, helped by global fluctuations in sea-level and climate change in the Arabian Peninsula.”

http://www.pasthorizons.com/index.php/archives/01/2011/modern-humans-may-arrived-in-the-arabian-peninsula-125000-years-ago