Life-size rock art points the way to oldest human inhabitants of Saudi Arabia — and the desert oases they used

abdulmanannet77@gmail.comSeptember 30, 2025

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Life-size rock art points the way to oldest human inhabitants of Saudi Arabia — and the desert oases they used

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Archaeologists in Saudi Arabia have discovered full -scale animal engravings of 12,000 years – “monumental rock art” which dates from more than 2000 years before humans were in the region, according to a new study.

These very realistic representations of camels and other creatures were probably culturally significant for these hunter-gatherers, and probably served markers to help people locate oases who appeared when the region became wet from 16,000 to 13,000 years old, researchers wrote in the study, which was published Tuesday, September 30, in the newspaper in the newspaper Nature communications.

The rock art could also have marked old travel routes or even signify the territory of a group and its intergenerational memory, the researchers said. These results finally show that “humans were able to survive in the desert very early, much earlier than we thought and in much more severe conditions than we thought”, co-author of the study Maria GUAGNINAn archaeologist at the Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropy in Germany, told Live Science.

At the crossroads between Africa and Asia, Arabia was a key migration route for the first humanswith research published on April 9 in the journal Nature Confirmation of the region underwent various “wet episodes” which allowed these dispersions. However, there was previously no proof of human occupation in northern Arabia between the end of the last glacial maximum (about 25,000 to 20,000 years ago), the coldest period of the Last glacial periodAnd about 10,000 years ago. The researchers supposed that the region had been abandoned because it was too arid to survive.

Now, following a council of local amateur archaeologists on a work of giant rock, the researchers explored three sites previously unknown in the southern desert of Nafud in northern Saudi Arabia which upset this hypothesis.

Upon their arrival, a teammate moved away to explore the region and discovered “the first major excitement”, a rocky training with an ancient art surrounding a water swimming pool, said Guagnin. And on the other side of the mountain was the remains of An old lake.

The team then found 62 rocky art panels with 176 engravings on the three sites, with a little engraved in huge 128 -foot cliffs (39 meters). The engravings were mainly life -size animals, mainly camels.

Above all, these representations were generally of male camels with distinctive bulges around their neck that they form during the season of materials and a thick winter fur. This suggests that the old sources of water can have been formed in winter and have also symbolized the resilience of these animals with the severe environment, speculated the authors in their study.

An archaeologist carrying all blue standing in an excavation trench under rock art.

Archaeologists have dug trenches under rocky art to determine their age. (Image Credit: Maria GUAGNIN)

Desert

Archaeologists excavated directly below four engravings of camels to try to determine their age. They uncovered more than 1,200 stones, 16 fragments of animal bone and three households. The team is dated from these Luminescence datingA technique that measures when the sediments were exposed for the last time to heat and sun and dating to the radiocarbon, which measures the ratio of different versions of carbon.

These methods revealed that rock art was between 12,800 and 11,400 years.

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Art of the Roche du camel in Saudi Arabia — (Image Credit: Sahout Rock Art and Archaeology Project)

One of the rocky camel art panels found in the Nafud desert in northern Saudi Arabia.

On an excavation site, the legs of the camels had been obscured by layers of sediment. When they dug, the team was surprised to find the stone tool probably responsible for the creation of the masterpiece, which they released around 12,200 years ago. This provides “an indirect date for engraving,” wrote the authors in the study.

They also found arrow points, blades and stone pearls; But “it’s not just a handful of arrow peaks,” said Guagnin. A community lived in the region and manufactured tools and ornaments typical of Natoufian culture in the Levant, several kilometers from the eastern Mediterranean. “They were in contact with the rising in a way over hundreds of kilometers,” she said, and learned the latest tools and accessories.

Above all, “certain things are imported, but certain things are unique”, co-author of the study Michael PetragliaAn archaeologist at Griffith University in Australia told Live Science. These people also developed theirs cultureWith rock art having a symbolic meaning as well as clear means to mark the roads towards water sources, he said.

An analysis of sediment in dried water sources revealed that the region had become wet from 16,000 to 13,000 years, forming seasonal lakes. This discovery represents the first evidence of increased humidity in northern Arabia after the last glacial maximum.

“This is a very exciting study revealing part of the Saudi history which has so far not been easily visible” ” Hugh ThomasAn archaeologist specializing in Saudi Arabia at the University of Sydney which was not involved in the study, said in Live Science in an email. He said that these results show that “the whole region was populated and that even at that time was an interconnected landscape”.