Early Holocene in the Highlands: Data on the Peopling of the Eastern Yemen Plateau, with a Note on the Pleistocene Evidence

Abstract

The uplands of the western Arabian peninsula have featured negligibly in discussions about the Pleistocene and Early Holocene occupation of Southwest Asia. Paleolithic, or presumed Paleolithic implements, have only been reported occasionally, and these are often without context. In most instances such findings have not been approached with critical scrutiny. As far as human occupation is concerned, the whole chronological period between the Last Glacial Maximum and the beginning of the Holocene is relatively unknown. Whether there is reason to think of an actual void in human presence can not be assessed. In particular, no lithic assemblage resembling an “Upper Paleolithic” industry has been reported. An attempt in the 1980s to develop a Paleolithic archaeology on the eastern and central Yemen Plateau met with limited success (Bulgarelli, 1988) and was soon discontinued. The Early Holocene itself, here defined as the period earlier than the “Mid-Holocene Pluvial”, has remained archaeologically unknown. Against this background, even modest information obtained from systematic archaeological fieldwork should be of interest.

Although we focus here on a small part of Yemen, a broader geographic perspective is essential. Here we are concerned with the western Arabian uplands, the fairly extensive mountainous “backbone” of the peninsula, which originated as a cordillera by the rifting of East Africa and Arabia along the Red Sea (Fig. 1). An often used and comprehensive name for these uplands is Yemen Mountains. However, an Arabic term is strangely lacking, perhaps as a result of historical contingencies that have emphasized divisions over geographic unity. The middle sector of the Yemen Mountains is rather loosely identified with the historical region of ‘Asīr, a part of “Greater Yemen” in a geographic sense; as a name, ‘Asīr is presently connected with the mountainous province of southwestern Saudi Arabia whose core relief is the Sarāt massif. Steep gullies intersect the eastern border of the Yemen Mountains as the highlands fall away more or less gradually towards the Arabian interior, this latter occupied by lowlands and deserts. Reaching higher in altitude (up to 3,500–3,600 m a.s.l.) the mountain sector in present-day Yemen tends to have a more precipitous and dissected border onto the eastern interior.