Archaeological Excavations Reveal Fascinating Material In Qatar

Carbon dating of ancient organic remains from Wadi Debay'an, a site a few miles south of Al Zubarah in Qatar northwest coast, gave the first known date yet for human occupation in Qatar - 7500 years before present.

This was revealed by archaeologist Dr. Tetlow environmental Emma registration in Qatar National Environment (QNER) in a presentation last week to members of the Qatar Natural History Group of the recent studies on the Wadi Debay'an.

QNER is a combined project in Qatar Museums Authority and the University of Birmingham, United Kingdom, directed by Dr. Richard Cuttler.

Before QNER work, the application of environmental archeology and geoarchaeology to sites in Qatar has been limited, but geomorphological and sedimentological data are now used to create sites that have been conducive to human occupation. Apply the techniques of analysis of pollen, macroscopic plant remains and insects - Tetlow special field of research - is revealing fascinating material in the soil and climate in Qatar, there are seven thousand years.

Carbon dating, often referred to as C14, is to measure the rate of decay of an isotope of carbon called carbon 14, which all living things inside.

Decay begins when the body dies, and from measurements archaeologists can get an approximate date, give or take 50-100 years or more.

"Europe," said Dr. Tetlow "deposits saturated with water are ideal for followers of the ancient organic matter, is suitable for carbon dating - it is an anaerobic content of these deposits, decay very slowly and can survive for thousands of years.

"When I arrived in Qatar, I thought - yes, it is a desert - we will not find waterlogged deposits here How wrong I was at Wadi Debay'an we use an electric auger, which is known as a Atlas Copco window.! Sampler, to drill deep beneath the ground surface of rock and sand and a layer of concrete, such as gypsum, below, in layer upon layer of organic sediments, which contain large amounts of material. "

Among the organic waste is a landfill - a stack of 2.5 m thick accumulated, where people throw trash, including thousands of fish bones.

By identifying the bones, especially the small ear bones called otoliths, experts can determine which species were found in the Persian Gulf and the time that were quite the catch.

There are also shells, as oyster shells and murex mollusks, which have been drilled for use as ornaments, stone tools and pottery shards.

The teeth of a dog alone can be derived from the domestic dog, or could have been a fox or jackal - more research is done in this model.

The 41 lithic (stone tools) found so far date from the late Neolithic period around 6000 years and is finely machined.

Some are made of a beautiful chocolate brown tabular flint. There are also 141 Obeid painted pottery made in Mesopotamia, in what is now Iraq in the same period.

A piece of dark iron ore may have come from a meteorite, and perhaps was prized for its rarity. Ancient human bones usually do not survive well in Qatar, but remains highly fragmented, were found in a funeral.

Proof of trade routes covering thousands of miles away, said the speaker, is corroborated by the discovery of a deposit of obsidian, which was the source of the Taurus Mountains in Turkey.

It 'clear that these fish eat the inhabitants of Qatar did not live in isolation but as part of a broader pattern of settlements throughout Asia.

This can be an ear for a house was searched, evidence that at least part of the year, people are still next to its main source of food rather than take a purely nomadic. A house near the post-hole produced the first dates back 7500 years.

In the Stone Age the climate was much wetter than it is today, and sea levels were higher. Dr. Tetlow said that the carbon dates have revealed evidence of continuous occupation of Wadi Debay'an sites of the Neolithic to the Bronze Age covers the span of about 5000 years.

Recently, in a deep trench, archaeologists found what looked like a stone wall. Now believe that this is perhaps a fish trap, the kind that was built around the coast of Qatar, until very recently. You can still see - the long lines of stones that extends to the shallow water at right angles to the coast, where the networks were created to catch fish as the tide.

"In recent years," said Dr. Tetlow, "is not an insect is never found in archaeological sites in Qatar now have 6000 years ago." Organic remains of insects, plants, trees and diatoms - microscopic single-celled organisms such as plankton, which form the fossil deposits - to produce a wealth of information once a microscope. Of these experts can learn a lot about the climate at that time, the coverage of vegetation and wildlife. Mangrove pollen is already confirmed for the first time this plant in Qatar coast is now alive, is a stunted form, is very edge of its natural range, is actually indigenous to the peninsula and has not been introduced.

The archaeology excavations and research at Wadi Debay'an will continue until 2011 in 2012, and several discoveries in this isolated and lonely place on the surface, so apparently barren, but rich documentation of the life of the ancestors of the people of Qatar continue to shed light on the old Qatar.



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