During these developments, the agency and demographic input of the local Late
Neolithic and early Hafit period populations must not be denied. These expanded
beyond their chief coastal refugia on the northwestern shore of the Oman Peninsula
and the Indian Ocean coast of Oman, to occupy and exploit the resources of the
piedmont, mountains and inland oasis chain. The repopulation and the advent of the
Bronze Age in this region is probably best seen as a process of ethnogenesis, where local
populations interacted with ideas and people from Mesopotamia and Iran to create an
entirely new cultural configuration.
Following this formative phase, distinctive local cultural and political configurations
arose in the Central and Lower Gulf by the ED I or II period, and the descendants of
these communities, respectively the Dilmun complex in the Central Gulf and the
Umm an-Nar complex in the Lower Gulf, went on to become active partners in the
great maritime trading network that connected Bronze Age Mesopotamia, Iran, eastern
Arabia and the Indus Valley region. Although overland contacts should not be ignored,
the emphasis on seafaring is inevitable: throughout the long time span covered by this
chapter the waters of the Gulf worked as a connective element rather than a barrier,
being easier to navigate than the inland waterways, the deserts and the mountains of
the neighbouring regions.
Finally, there remains no convincing explanation for the appearance of
Mesopotamian features in Upper Egypt in the late fourth or early third millennium BC,
particularly the depictions of a highly distinctive Late Uruk/Jamdat Nasr boat type in
rock art in the Wadi Hammamat, and on an ivory knife handle from the same area (the
Jebel Arak knife handle) (Mark 1997 : 69 – 73 , fig. 34 , 81 – 82 , fig. 44 ; Wengrow 2006 : 40 ,
136 – 137 , 140 , figs. 7. 1 , 7. 4 ). Current opinion favours a route following the Euphrates
via the Uruk colonies, with both maritime and terrestrial routes of communication
converging in the southern Levant, but this does not explain the appearance of eastern
materials (lapis lazuli) initially in Upper Egypt rather than Lower Egypt. Arguments
against a coastal route around Arabia include the colossal distance entailed in
circumnavigating the peninsula. The presence of communities on the eastern tip of
Oman (i.e. HD- 6 ), in contact with Mesopotamia and perhaps even with Mesopotamian
demographic input, would begin to close this gap.
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—— 1993 The Uruk World System: the dynamics of expansion of early Mesopotamian civilization.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Alster B. 1983 Dilmun, Bahrain and the Alleged Paradise in Sumerian Myth and Literature.
InDilmun: New Studies in the Archaeology and Early History of Bahrain. BBVO 2 ,ed. Potts,
D. T. Berlin: Dietrich Reimer Verlag, pp. 39 – 74.
Anon 2003 Jiroft fabuleuse découverte en Iran.Dijon: Edition Faton.
Azzarà V. M. 2009 Domestic Architecture at the Early Bronze Age sites HD- 6 and RJ- 2 (Ja’alan,
Sultanate of Oman). Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies 39 : 1 – 16.
Azzarà V. M. in press The Organisation of Food-Processing at HD- 6 , Sultanate of Oman,
Proceedings of the 7 ICAANE (International Congress on the Archaeology of the Ancient Near
East) The Archaeology of Consumption and Disposal Session, April 12 – 16 2010, London.
–– The Sumerians and the Gulf ––