Beitrag
Bioarchaeology-related studies in the Arabian Gulf: potentialities and shortcomings
Baldoni, Marica; Al-Hashmi, Muna; Bianchi, Alice Enrica; Sakal, Ferhan; Al-Naimi, Faisal; Leisten, Thomas; Martínez-Labarga, Cristina; Tomei, Sara
HOMO Volume 72 No 1 (2021), p. 17 - 32
veröffentlicht: Mar 23, 2021
Online veröffentlicht: Feb 23, 2021
Manuskript akzeptiert: Nov 20, 2020
finale Ms. Revision erhalten: Nov 20, 2020
Manuskript-Revision angefordert: Jul 8, 2020
Manuskript erhalten: Apr 7, 2020
Open Access (Arbeit kann kostenlos heruntergeladen werden)
Abstract
Archaeological studies provide a powerful tool to understand the prehistoric societies, especially when combined to cutting-edge morphological and molecular anthropological analyses, allowing reconstructing past population dynamics, admixture events, and socio-cultural changes. Despite the advances achieved in the last decades by archaeological studies worldwide, several regions of the World have been spared from this scientific improvement due to various reasons. The Arabian Gulf represents a unique ground to investigate, being the passageway for human migrations and one of the hypothesized areas in which Neanderthal introgression occurred. A number of archaeological sites are currently present in the Arabian Gulf and have witnessed the antiquity and the intensiveness of the human settlements in the region. Nevertheless, the archaeological and anthropological investigation in the Gulf is still in its infancy. Data collected through archaeological studies in the area have the potential to help answering adamant questions of human history from the beginning of the structuring of genetic diversity in human species to the Neolithisation process. This review aims at providing an overview of the archaeological studies in the Arabian Gulf with special focus to Qatar, highlighting potentialities and shortcomings.
Schlagworte
prehistoric societies • human skeletal remains • morphological analyses • molecular anthropological analyses • socio-cultural changes • Neolithisation process • Qatar