학술논문

The Nubian Complex of Dhofar, Oman: An African Middle Stone Age Industry in Southern Arabia.
Document Type
Article
Source
PLoS ONE. 2011, Vol. 6 Issue 11, p1-22. 22p.
Subject
*STONE Age
*POPULATION
*PLEISTOCENE paleontology
Language
ISSN
1932-6203
Abstract
Despite the numerous studies proposing early human population expansions from Africa into Arabia during the Late Pleistocene, no archaeological sites have yet been discovered in Arabia that resemble a specific African industry, which would indicate demographic exchange across the Red Sea. Here we report the discovery of a buried site and more than 100 new surface scatters in the Dhofar region of Oman belonging to a regionally-specific African lithic industry - the late Nubian Complex - known previously only from the northeast and Horn of Africa during Marine Isotope Stage 5, ∼128,000 to 74,000 years ago. Two optically stimulated luminescence age estimates from the open-air site of Aybut Al Auwal in Oman place the Arabian Nubian Complex at ∼106,000 years ago, providing archaeological evidence for the presence of a distinct northeast African Middle Stone Age technocomplex in southern Arabia sometime in the first half of Marine Isotope Stage 5. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]