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Honolulu, Hawaï

- 2-3 Avril 2013
1- Middle Paleolithic and Neolithic Occupations on the Mundafan Lakeshore, Empty Quarter, Saudi Arabia: Implications for Climate Change and Human Dispersals.
Communication de  Rémy Crassard, Michael Petraglia, Nick Drake, Bernard Gratuze, and Abdullah Alsharekh
2 -The Palaeodeserts Project: Environmental Change and Hominin Occupation in the Arabian Peninsula
Communication de M. Petraglia, A. Alsharekh, Rémy Crassard, H. Groucutt, C. Shipton, A. Parker, A. Parton
3 - Bavra-Ablari, a Late Neolithic-Chalcolithic Rockshelter in Djavakheti, Georgia
Communication de Varoutsikos B., Mgeladze A., Chataigner Christine, Gabunia M.

 

The Paleoanthropology Society 
Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology 

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1- Middle Paleolithic and Neolithic Occupations on the Mundafan Lakeshore, Empty Quarter, Saudi Arabia: Implications for Climate Change and Human Dispersals.
Résumé :
The Arabian Peninsula is a key region for understanding climate change and human occupation history in a marginal environment. The Mundafan paleolake is situated in the Empty Quarter of Saudi Arabia. Here we report the first discoveries of Middle Paleolithic and Neolithic archaeological sites in association with the paleolake. We associate the human occupations with new geochronological data, and suggest the archaeological sites date to the wet periods of Marine Isotope Stage 5 and the Early Holocene. The archaeological sites indicate that humans repeatedly penetrated the ameliorated, but somewhat marginal, environments of the Empty Quarter. The sites are probably short term occupations, with the Neolithic sites focused on hunting as indicated by points and weaponry. Middle Paleolithic assemblages at Mundafan support a lacustrine adaptive focus in Arabia. Provenancing of obsidian artifacts indicates that Neolithic groups at Mundafan had a wide wandering range, with transport of artifacts from distant sources.