The Standing Stone Cultures of Northwestern Arabia - From pastoral to oasis life: cultural and technological strategies interacting with environmental shifts

阿拉伯西北部的立石文化 - 从田园生活到绿洲生活：文化和技术策略与环境变化的相互作用

• 批准号: 244811163
• 负责人: Professor Dr.-Ing. Matthias Grottker
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: Institut für Geographie
• 依托单位国家: 德国
• 项目类别: Research Grants
• 财政年份: 2013
• 资助国家: 德国
• 起止时间: 2012-12-31 至 2014-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gepris.dfg.de/gepris/projekt/244811163?language=en
• 关键词: Standing; Stone; Cultures; Northwestern; Arabia

Our pilot study focuses on a novel research question confronted with a hitherto extremely poor state of art: approached by a transdisciplinary regional study, it aims to shed light on how Arabia's territories contributed one of the most innovative and sustainable socio-economies to the Middle East's and global history, the Arabian oasis life mode. Recent research suggests that early oasis life was promoted by enhanced climate aridity after 4.0 ka cal BCE which forced the extensive megalithic shepherd/ standing stone cultures like those of Rajajil or Qulban Beni Murra to contract at hydrologically favoured places of the Arabian Peninsula. The 5th millennium cal BCE shepherd cultures' hydraulic competencies such as building wells and troughs using channel technologies as well as their social organization must have gradually become the substratum of the well-based sedentary oasis horticulture from ~4.0 ka cal BCE. A most promising region to test this general hypothesis and research question for Arabia is Rajajil and its greater environs in N Saudi Arabia, considered to be one of the early transition areas to the historically new oasis life-mode. Archaeohydrologically, our still premature knowledge of the early Arabian oasis defines them as artificial horticultural sociohydraulic systems in arid land environments, irrigated by fortified wells or channels leading off from surface water sources (springs, water harvesting systems). A larger diversity of the early Arabian Oasis is expected, related to the ecological and climatological specifics of a region, as well as hydraulic modifications of natural oases. The major aims of our pilot study are the clear identification of the archaeological sites and hydraulic systems of the 5th and 4th millennium BCE in northwestern Saudi-Arabia, the detection and primary analysis of environmental archives (fluvial and sebkha sediments) with high potential for transdisciplinary interpretation, and testing of our preliminary sociohydraulic and palaeoenvironmental project theses. Hence, the modified project theses will be the basis for our planned follow-up project in northwestern Saudi-Arabia.In our pilot study we want to apply the following methods: a) archaeological, geoarchaeological and archaeohydrological surveys, b) archaeological and geoarchaeological soundings and sampling procedures, c) geoarchaeological, geomorphological and geochemical sediment analyses, and d) the transdiciplinary usage of a geographical information system.

我们的初步研究集中在一个新的研究问题上，这个问题面临着迄今为止极其糟糕的现状：通过一项跨学科的区域研究，旨在揭示阿拉伯领土如何为中东和全球历史贡献了最具创新性和最可持续的社会经济之一--阿拉伯绿洲生活模式。最近的研究表明，公元前4.0ka之后气候干旱加剧促进了早期绿洲的生命，迫使像Rajajil或Qulban Beni Murra这样的大片巨石牧羊人/直立石器文化在阿拉伯半岛水文有利的地方收缩。公元前5世纪，牧羊人文化的水力能力，如利用渠道技术建造水井和水槽，以及他们的社会组织，从公元前4.0ka开始，必然逐渐成为基础良好的定居绿洲园艺的基础。对于阿拉伯来说，最有希望检验这一普遍假设和研究问题的地区是拉贾吉勒及其位于沙特阿拉伯北部的更大范围的环境，被认为是向历史上新的绿洲生活模式的早期过渡地区之一。从考古水文学的角度来看，我们对早期阿拉伯绿洲的了解还为时过早，将其定义为干旱土地环境中的人工园艺社会水力系统，由从地表水源(泉水、集水系统)引出的加固井或渠道灌溉。早期阿拉伯绿洲的多样性预计会更大，这与一个地区的生态和气候特点以及天然绿洲的水力改造有关。我们试点研究的主要目的是明确确定沙特阿拉伯西北部公元前5世纪和公元前4000年的考古遗址和水力系统，检测和初步分析具有高跨学科解释潜力的环境档案(河流和塞卜哈沉积物)，以及测试我们初步的社会-水力和古环境项目论文。因此，修改后的项目论文将成为我们在沙特阿拉伯西北部计划的后续项目的基础。在我们的初步研究中，我们希望应用以下方法：a)考古、地质考古和考古水文调查，b)考古和地球考古探测和采样程序，c)大地考古、地貌和地球化学沉积物分析，以及d)地理信息系统的跨学科使用。

项目成果

Climate forcing and shifts in water management on the Northwest Arabian Peninsula (mid-Holocene Rasif wetlands, Saudi Arabia)

• DOI: 10.1016/j.quaint.2018.03.001
• 发表时间: 2018-04
• 期刊: Quaternary International
• 影响因子: 2.2
• 作者: C. Zielhofer;Kai Wellbrock;A.S.A. al-Souliman;M. Grafenstein;B. Schneider;K. Fitzsimmons;A. Stele;T. Lauer;H. Suchodoletz;M. Grottker;H. Gebel