A new study has shed light on the remarkable discovery of a small Bronze Age-era town, which was found by archaeologists in the Khaybar Oasis of Saudi Arabia.
In the study, published in the journal PLOS One on Oct. 30, researchers said the town spanned roughly 3.7 acres of land, "including a central district and nearby residential district surrounded by protective ramparts." Experts estimate that around 500 people called the town, known as "al-Natah,” home. The town was abandoned sometime between 1500 and 1300 B.C., but the reason for this exodus remains unknown.
"It's a pertinent question that I can't really answer at the moment," Guillaume Charloux, an archaeologist at the French National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS), told Live Science. “We have very few clues about the last phase of occupation."
Within the residential area, scientists found partial remains of at least 50 homes which seem to have been constructed from “earthen materials.” Archaeologists also discovered notable amounts of pottery and grinding stones scattered about the community. In the town’s central area, they located a large necropolis marked with towering circular tombs which are known as “stepped tower tombs.”
Charloux et al., 2024, PLOS One, CC-BY 4.0
Charloux et al., 2024, PLOS One, CC-BY 4.0
Charloux et al., 2024, PLOS One, CC-BY 4.0
Based on the findings, the study determined that Bronze Age people located in this region were slower to urbanize than some of their peers.
"Settlements in northern Arabia were in a transitional stage of urbanization during the third to second millennium [B.C.]," the researchers explained. This period, known as "low urbanization," was a transitional time between pastoralism and more modern urban settlements.
"While urbanization began in Mesopotamia and Egypt in the fourth millennium B.C., our study tends to show that social complexity increased late in north-western Arabia," Charloux added.
Robert Andrew Carter, an archaeology professor who was not involved in the study, said that the discovery is a great step forward in understanding the people of the Bronze Age.
"We only have a sketchy understanding of the Bronze Age and the origins of urbanism in the [Hejez area of western Saudi Arabia],” Carter noted. “This study goes a long way in providing primary data, and improving our theoretical understanding.”
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