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

我们的试点研究的重点是一个新的研究问题，面临着迄今为止极其贫穷的艺术状态：通过跨学科的区域研究，它旨在阐明阿拉伯的领土如何贡献了最具创新性和可持续性的社会经济中东和全球历史，阿拉伯绿洲生活模式。最近的研究表明，早期的绿洲生活是促进了4.0 ka cal BCE后的气候干旱，迫使广泛的巨石牧羊人/立石文化，如拉贾吉尔或库尔班贝尼穆拉合同在水文有利的阿拉伯半岛的地方。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威尔斯和水槽，以及他们的社会组织，必须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，检验这一一般假设和研究问题最有希望的地区是沙特阿拉伯北部的拉贾吉尔及其周边地区，它们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。从生态水文学的角度来看，我们对早期阿拉伯绿洲的认识还不成熟，因此将其定义为干旱土地环境中的人工园艺社会水力系统，由强化的威尔斯井或从地表水源（泉水、集水系统）引出的渠道进行灌溉。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征以及天然绿洲的水力改造有关。我们的试点研究的主要目的是明确识别沙特阿拉伯西北部公元前5世纪和公元前4世纪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的后续项目的基础。在我们的试点研究中，我们希望采用以下方法：a）考古、地质考古和考古水文调查，B）考古和地质考古探测和取样程序，c）地质考古、地貌和地球化学沉积物分析，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.