The comforting truth about life in Stone Age Abu Dhabi
Imagine a wetter, greener, cooler place – a country with more rainfall, even lakes.
This is what parts of the modern-day UAE looked like about 8,000 years ago.
And the people? Forget simplistic Hollywood portrayals of primitive nomads struggling to eke out an existence.
They were sophisticated and skilled. They built permanent stone dwellings, knew how to navigate, herded sheep and goats, mined, made jewellery, fished, traded and even created decorative art.
This Stone Age community existed on Marawah Island. Marawah lies just off the coast of Mirfa town, about 160 kilometres east of the
capital, Abu Dhabi city. The Neolithic site was identified in the 1990s but only in the past few years has the extent and sophistication of the village settlement become apparent.
More details about the archaeological finds centring on one site, MR11, will be discussed at NYUAD this evening in a lecture by Dr Mark Beech.
He is the leading archaeologist with the Department of Culture and Tourism – Abu Dhabi and directed the excavations on the island.
“People have a funny idea from Hollywood movies about the Stone Age and that the people were barbarians,” Dr Beech said. “They were clever. They built their houses at the highest point to catch the breeze. They adapted, like we adapted with air-conditioning.”
The conditions for this type of life started with the end of the last Ice Age about 18,000 years ago. Global sea levels rose by about 120 metres. The Indian Ocean then slowly encroached on the Arabian Gulf, which then started to fill in and became a sea by about 6,000BC.
Excavations on Marawah Island using radio carbon dating revealed how a settled community emerged during this time. The people constructed stone houses – the earliest examples of such architecture in the Arabian Gulf – and expertly exploited the sea.
They caught fish, dugongs, turtles and dolphins using lines made from gut and plant materials, used stone sinkers for larger nets and also made basket traps similar to modern-day metal cage gargours.
“If you stepped back in time and went to this village, you would see lots of things happening,” Dr Beech said. “They are busy and occupied. They are not all struggling for food.”
Life expectancy for the people who lived on Marawah ranged from 30 to 50 years. But because their diet was mainly fish, the people would have been reasonably healthy.
Studies on skeletons dating to the same period in other parts of the region also show their teeth were probably in a better condition than ours because of the little sugar they consumed.
Evidence unearthed also shows they started to use oysters for pearls as well as for food. “We have found mother-of-pearl buttons that are really delicate, with holes drilled through them. They made all of these with flint stone tools,” Dr Beech said.
Another interesting find is plaster vessels, which can be regarded as the earliest expression of art found in modern-day Abu Dhabi. People on Marawah decorated gypsum stone with haematite iron ore from the nearby Dalma and Sir Bani Yas islands. These vessels imitated the more advanced Ubaid pottery from Iraq, which has also been found on Marawah.
“They are astonishing,” Dr Beech said of the plaster vessels. “These stripes imitate the decoration on Ubaid ceramics because Ubaid pottery was a cultural thing that everyone wanted, like an iPhone. But it’s not that simple – the people on Marawah are a local cultural group.” The community existed for more than 1,000 years before a change in the climate meant people moved. Now it is the Marawah Marine Biosphere Reserve and a habitat for dugongs and hawksbill turtles, among others.
Dr Beech remembers his first time visit to Marawah, in 1994.
“I stepped on it and it was a magical place. Small traces of the old life still exist. So much of the coast now has been altered and modernised so it’s a beautiful place. A largely natural island with coastal mud flats and mangroves.”
Archaeologists will return to Marawah next year for the new excavation season, which lasts up to six weeks. Each season results in years of work for archaeologists who must identify, record and catalogue every find.
“It takes a long time to tell the full story. The next chapter will be unveiled at the lecture,” Dr Beech said.
Life in Stone Age Abu Dhabi: Excavations on Marawah Island takes place at NYUAD today at 6.30pm and is open to the public