Saudi Arabia’s Saudi Heritage Authority announced that traces of early human migration from Africa to the Arabian Peninsula, which began some 400,000 years ago and was repeated through time stages, were discovered in the north of the kingdom by recent archaeological discoveries.
Stone tools and fossilized animal bones were found within the layers of dry lakes in the Nafud desert, northwest of Saudi Arabia at the site of Khel Amishan, on the outskirts of the Tabuk region, while antiquities were found dating back about 400,000 years, including Acheulean axes, which are considered the oldest dated archaeological remains in the Arabian Peninsula.
According to the commission, this discovery marks the longest civilized record of early human presence in the Arabian Peninsula, confirming the civilizational importance of the Arabian Peninsula and the role that human groups have played contributing to a number of civilizational developments outside the continent of Africa.
Specialists from the Heritage Authority, the Max Planck Institute in Germany, and King Saud University, in addition to a number of universities and international centers, participated in this international mission.
The site of Khel Amishan is considered one of the most unique archaeological sites on the level of the Arabian Peninsula because it contains several archaeological layers, which include environmental information from different periods.
It was revealed by the study that the various stages of human existence were characterized by archaeological remains whose characteristics differ in each of their periods, which indicates the difference of these groups from each other and the emergence of new stone industries according to the time period.
Contributions were made by the study to identify the periods of time with a temperate climate, during which these human migrations took place from Africa to the Arabian Peninsula, despite the absence of cave deposits that usually retain such cultural connotations.
The study showed the existence of Acheulean stone industries dating back 200,000 years. The stones are relatively newer than their counterparts in southwest Asia, which indicates the civilizational peculiarity of the Arabian Peninsula and its cultural features shaped by the environmental and cultural conditions prevailing at the time. The latter confirms the connection of these archaeological sites with the activities of the stone tool industry, rather than representing living sites for the establishment of human groups.
The Acheulean civilization continued until the wet periods of the late Middle Pleistocene, which were contemporaneous with the Levulus industrial technology at the end of the Acheulean civilization period. These stone industries are unique in their technical advantages and are not similar to their counterparts in the eastern Mediterranean.
The study showed that the Levelose industry in the Great Nafud is closer in its cultural characteristics to its counterparts in East Africa. Five waves of human migrations to the Arabian Peninsula from Africa were identified which were associated with improving climatic conditions and decreasing drought.
The scientific study relied on the latest technologies and scientific methods to reach accurate and confirmed information about the civilizational history of human groups in the Arabian Peninsula. A research team from a number of international and national centres and universities was based on it.
Attached to this study is a detailed appendix of all the office, laboratory and field procedures and studies in more than 120 pages.
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