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

我们的试点研究侧重于一个迄今为止极度落后的新研究问题：通过跨学科区域研究，它旨在揭示阿拉伯领土如何为中东和全球历史贡献最具创新性和可持续性的社会经济之一，即阿拉伯绿洲生活模式。最近的研究表明，早期的绿洲生命是由公元前4.0 ka cal之后气候干旱的加剧所促进的，这迫使像拉贾吉勒或古尔班贝尼穆拉这样的大规模巨石牧羊人/立石文化在阿拉伯半岛水文有利的地方收缩。公元前5千年的牧羊人文化的水力能力，如使用渠道技术建造水井和水槽，以及他们的社会组织，一定是在公元前4千年左右逐渐成为以井为基础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沙特阿拉伯北部的拉贾吉尔及其周边地区，这里被认为是向历史上新的绿洲生活模式早期过渡的地区之一。从考古水文学的角度来看，我们对早期阿拉伯绿洲尚不成熟的认识将其定义为干旱土地环境中的人工园艺社会水力系统，通过从地表水来源（泉水、集水系统）引出的强化井或渠道进行灌溉。预计早期阿拉伯绿洲的多样性会更大，这与一个地区的生态和气候特点以及自然绿洲的水力变化有关。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至4千年的考古遗址和水力系统，检测和初步分析具有跨学科解释潜力的环境档案（河流和sebkha沉积物），并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计划在沙特阿拉伯西北部开展后续项目的依据。在我们的试点研究中，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)考古和地质考古测深和采样程序，c)地质考古，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。

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.