Ancient Carvings of Camels Acted as Road Signs to Water in the Desert Around 12,000 Years Ago
Imagine that you are traveling through the Nefud desert in northern Saudi Arabia, about 12,000 years ago. Your trip is difficult. The sand dunes move to your feet; The wind screwed up on your face; And the water is rare, appearing and disappearing depending on the season. You worry about what will happen if you are walking much more without something to drink-that is to say you were Worried, until you spot an engraving of a camel scratched in a cliff.
According to a new study in Nature communicationsThe former inhabitants of northern Saudi Arabia did not cross the desert blindly. Instead, they created a network of rock sculptures which acted like road signs, allowing them to sail on their land through the marking of territories, transport routes and seasonal water sources.
“These large engravings are not only rocky art,” said Maria GUAGNIN, study author and archaeologist of the Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology, according to a press release. “They were probably declarations of presence, access and cultural identity.”
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Survival in the Saudi desert
Towards the end of the last glacial period, or the last glacial maximum (LGM), about 12,000 years ago, the land of Saudi Arabia began to transform itself, passing from a hyper-aditity age in the Pleistocene to a period of humidity in the Holocene.
For years, we thought that this transition from Pleistocene to the Holocene made the desert of the nave that is more welcoming for humans, the first human occupation after the LGM occurring in the region about 10,000 years ago to 8,000 years.
But in 2022, an archaeological survey identified 18 engravings of camels and other animals in Sahout, along the southern border of the Néfud desert, referring to humans have been able to succeed in the landscape from more than 10,000 years to 8,000 years.
To solidify this theory, and to learn more about the way in which humans could have survived the transformative field, the authors of the new study carried out their own archaeological and excavations along the limits of the nefud desert, focusing on the previously not excluded areas of Jebel Armaan, Jebel Mleiha and Mebel Misma. In these places, they discovered 176 sculptures, including 130 engravings of camels, gazelles and ibxes, in addition to horses and aurochs.
About 12,800 to 11,400 years, these engravings were created when seasonal sources of water began to appear among the sand dunes and the sediments, at the start of the Pleistocene transition to Holocene. According to the team’s sedimentary analyzes, the sculptures have been positioned near these water sources – as well as other benchmarks, such as territorial lines and itinerant routes – helping humans survive on the ground.
“The art of the rock marks the sources of water and the ways of movement,” said Ceri Shipton, another study author and archaeologist at the University College in London, according to the press release, “perhaps meaning territorial rights and intergenerational memory”.
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Sculptures as old sign poles
In the three places, the engravings were large, some measuring up to 10 feet high. And on the sites of Jebel Arnaan and Jebel Mleiha, the engravings were particularly catchy, appearing on the surface of the exposed cliffs, some about 128 feet in the air. According to the authors of the study, the size and placement of the sculptures support the interpretation according to which they served as ancient sign plans, pointing to the location of the monuments nearby.
The team adds that ancient craftsmen should have hung on the cliffs to create these sculptures, stressing their importance as an artistic expression and an old survival strategy, allowing humans to prosper in the desert of Nefud, at the start of its Pleistocene transition to Holocene.
Directed in collaboration with the Heritage Commission of the Saudi Ministry of Culture, research represents a major achievement for the Green Arabia project, an international initiative launched in 2010 to retrace the history of climate change and human housing throughout the Arab Peninsula.
“The interdisciplinary approach to the project began to fill a critical gap in the archaeological archives of North Arabia,” said Michael Petraglia, another study author and archaeologist and director of Australian Research Center for Human Evolution, according to the press release, “in light on resilience and innovation of the first desert communities”.
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