Jebel Faya

Findings

Site description

Jebel Faya is a limestone mountain outlier in Al Faya, in the Central Region of the Emirate of Sharjah, measuring about 10 km (6.2 mi) in length and about 2 km (1.2 mi) in width. The archaeological site itself is called FAY-NE1, a rock shelter located at the northeastern endpoint of Jebel Faya. Archaeologists have excavated several trenches at the site, with an area of over 150 m² (1,600 sq ft) excavated in total. It has a 5 m (16 ft) deep stratified sequence of archaeological levels, containing deposits from the Bronze and Iron Ages, the Late Palaeolithic, and the Paleolithic.

Environmental context

Paleolithic occupations at Jebel Faya have been linked to humid periods in southern Arabia, in which freshwater availability and vegetation cover of the area would have increased and supported human subsistence. In 2013, Bretzke et al. analyzed sediment columns from trenches at FAY-NE1. While Assemblages A, B, and C showed evidence of vegetation, the layers lacking archaeological deposits showed evidence of desiccation. Additional studies of alluvial fan records and relic lake deposits in the region have supported this theory that humid periods may have offered multiple opportunities for human dispersal in southern Arabia.

Deposits

Researchers defined two different archaeological sequences, which, however, can stratigraphically be linked. There is a so-called Terrace Sequence mostly excavated in front of the rock shelter, where the Palaeolithic layers are called A-D. The second sequence is called Faya Shelter Sequence and describes the stratigraphy below the current rock shelter using the term archaeological horizon (AH) for archaeological layer. The Shelter Sequence comprised six plaeolithic AHs (II-VII) below the uppermost mixed layer AH I. These layers yielded more than 6,000 stone artifacts. Additionally, the terrace sequence in front of the rock shelter at FAY-NE 1 contains about 28,000 stone artifacts.

Most of the recovered Paleolithic layers from FAY-NE1 were dated using single-grain optically stimulated luminescence (OSL), while the Late Palaeolithic layer was dated using radiocarbon ages from marine shell. The horizons are as follows, from top to bottom including the layers from both sequences and their stratigraphic correlation:

AH I

Uppermost layer of the Shelter sequence with mixed cultural material from multiple later prehistoric periods.

AH II

Dated to approximately 80,000 years ago. The recovered assemblage shows a focus on the production of elongated tools and blades using typical Middle Paleolithic technologies including Levallois.

AH III

This relatively small assemblage underlies AH II and consists of relatively large cores, flakes and tools.

Assemblage A / AH IV

Has previously been dated to approximately 40,000 years ago, but has recently revised to an age between 120,000 and 90,000 years ago. Recovered tools include a range of different types of sidescrapers and denticulates.

Assemblage B / AH V

Dated to approximately 120,000 years. Recovered tools resemble those of Assemblage A.

Assemblage C / AH VI

Dated to approximately 125,000 years ago. Recovered tools include small hand axes, foliates, end scrapers and sidescrapers, and denticulates. Evidence of the Levallois production technique is unique to Assemblage C.

Stone tools are thought to have been associated with Homo sapiens living in Africa at that time, and this shows that modern sapiens may have expanded Africa more quickly than thought.

AH VII

Has been dated to approximately 170,000 years ago. Recovered tools share typological and technological similarities with Assemblage C/AH VI.

Assemblage D

Has been dated to approximately 210,000 years ago. Due to small number of finds, typological characterisation of the tools from Assemblage D is currently not available.

Paleolithic Assemblage E is also present, but has not been discussed in detail due to a small number of finds.

Late Palaeolithic levels

The layer directly overlying the Paleolithic sequence has previously been attributed to the Neolithic period. This layer contains so-called Faya points (arrowheads) and shell fragments, dated to about 9,500 years BP. Hans-Peter Uerpmann and his colleagues attribute these artifacts to the first reoccupation of the site since its last abandonment in the Paleolithic. Since there is no evidence for animal domestication, a key element of the local Neolithic, neither here in Faya nor in other synchroneous sites, the classification of this layer has changed. Layers above this Late Palaeolithic level are less distinct and have not provided significant information about later prehistoric occupation.

Significance

Although no human fossils have been found at Jebel Faya, Armitage and others have argued that the Assemblage C artifacts, dated to 125,000 years BP, were produced by anatomically modern humans (AMH). This is because Assemblage C resembles contemporary east and northeast African technology more than the technology found at sites elsewhere on the Arabian peninsula. As a result, the evidence at Jebel Faya has been used to support the idea of an early dispersal of AMH from the Horn of Africa across southern Arabia and into southern Asia. According to this theory, modern humans dispersed out of Africa before the eruption of the Toba supervolcano 70–75,000 years BP. This claim is based on excavations at Jwalapuram in India by Petraglia et al., who argue that assemblages found in pre- and post-Toba eruption layers indicate the continuous presence of AMH. For Petraglia and his colleagues, the presence of AMH at Jebel Faya 125,000 years ago could be evidence of an early dispersal route out of Africa, which humans could have followed to south Asia. However, there is strong opposition to this notion, as critics have argued that the Assemblage C evidence is not enough to confirm the presence of AMH from Africa. According to Paul Mellars, who believes that significant modern human dispersals did not occur until after the Toba eruption, “There's not a scrap of evidence here that these were made by modern humans, nor that they came from Africa.”

Studies about Jebel Faya's environmental context have indicated the potential for human dispersals out of Africa during humid periods in southern Arabia. These periods coincide with occupation at FAY-NE1, and depict activity at Jebel Faya as a cycle of occupation and abandonment according to the availability of water and vegetation. However, although these studies demonstrate the site's attractiveness during humid periods, there is an ongoing debate about the identity of its occupants.

Due to their dissimilarity from any other Middle or Late Stone Age assemblages, Assemblages B and A have been attributed to indigenous developments, which may indicate that Jebel Faya was inhabited continuously. However, this conclusion has been questioned due to genetic evidence of a more rapid dispersal of AMH out of Africa, meaning the Paleolithic assemblages may be the products of unrelated populations.