The evolution of Late Quaternary alluvial landscapes in northern Oman

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Rapid urban and industrial development is altering the landscape of Arabia at an alarming rate. However, these landscapes are archives of hundreds of thousands of years of environmental change, and provide an important framework for understanding the demographic variability of human populations in the distant past. Multi-proxy data from an extensive suite of river and lake deposits along the western Hajar Mountains can be used to develop a sensitive record of climatically-driven environmental change. The dispersals of prehistoric populations are fundamentally linked to the availability of freshwater resources within the Arabian Peninsula. In particular, the occupation of archaeological sites such as Jebel Faya (UAE), are seemingly synchronous with increased rainfall and the expansion of vegetation throughout the region. Despite the potential of palaeoenvironmental investigations in this region to advance knowledge of early human-environment interactions, to date there are only a few studies with good chronometric control. Therefore, building an advanced and securely dated framework of Arabian palaeohydrology from fan systems within the region has the potential to generate a high-resolution record of the water resources available to our ancestors, and the environmental pressures influencing their mobility. This record has huge educational value for regional museums and heritage organisations.Research questions: The main aim of this project is to develop a framework of climatically driven landscape change from SE Arabia utilising a series of dated fluvial/alluvial sediment sequences situated along the western Hajar Mountains. The overarching research questions will be: 1. What is the nature and timing of drainage activation from the western Hajar region of SE Arabia? 2. How did the abiotic and biotic components of SE Arabian environments respond to these periods of drainage activation? 3. How do such changes correspond with wider regional and global climate variability? 4. What implications did these changes in water resource availability have for Early Homo sapiens and their demography throughout the Mid-Late Pleistocene? 5. How can these findings be used to improve presentation of the stories of pre-historic peoples in museums and heritage sites within the region?