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International audience

International audience; Since at least the 1970s, McGuire Gibson recognized the unique potential for archaeological research in highland Yemen to reveal key insights into Arabian prehistory. At that time, southwest Arabia was considered by most to be peripheral to cultural developments in better-known parts of the early ancient Near East. A series of research projects in the region have since shown that Gibson’s early assessment was astute. This chapter briefly reviews the current state of research on the prehistory and paleoecology of highland Yemen, with special attention to the contributions of the Dhamar Survey Project, which was cofounded by McGuire Gibson and Tony Wilkinson. We then situate the evidence for prehistoric highland Yemen in the context of contemporary research questions across Arabia and the wider region.

International audience

Yemeni Heritage, Saudi Vandalism

Le patrimoine du Yémen bombardé

Le Yémen ou la force de l’histoire

International audience; In Memoriam: Selma Al-Radi

Late prehistoric standing stones of the Tihamah coastal plain, Yemen: cumulative review

International audience; The 2008 field season of the University of Arkansas at Little Rock (UALR) Māryah Archaeological Project was dedicated to creating a detailed, three-dimensional map of the 40.4 ha highland site of Masna'at Māryah. This site was occupied from the Neolithic to the Himyarite period. In addition to precise mapping of the topography, buildings, streets, water cisterns, and other cultural features visible on the surface, we conducted a comprehensive assessment of the distribution of cultural artefacts across the site’s surface. This work has also clarified Masna'at Māryah’s cultural chronology as it developed from a town with a focus on ceremonial space in the Bronze and Iron Ages, to a strategic elite urban production centre in the Himyarite period. The artefact densities and distributions systematically mapped out across the site reflect a number of processes that allow us to understand the use of space through time. We have identified evident access routes for local obsidian procurement and trade, specialized areas for ironworking, drainage patterns, and water management strategies, as well as areas currently heavily affected by, and prone to, erosion. This paper explains the mapping strategy developed for Masna'at Māryah and presents the implications of the data for the spatial, socio-political, and economic transformation of this site over several millennia.

National audience

Society for Arabian Studies Monographs No. 5 and BAR International Series 1661

The rise and fall of the rival South Arabian kingdoms (900 BC – AD 600) has been widely documented through excavation and epigraphic data. This period witnessed the growth of complex societies, each with its pantheon, a written language, and monumental architecture. These kingdoms prospered along the desert fringe of Yemen as a result of organized largescale agricultural systems and the overland trade in aromatics between India and Africa, and the Mediterranean. Yet the developments that led to the growth of these kingdoms have not been adequately studied, leaving large discontinuities in our reconstruction of the regional, chronological and cultural record. These gaps are partially the result of outdated perspectives, methodologies and theoretical overviews that have dominated scholarly research in the region for half a century. What has developed is a fragmented and unbalanced field of study that has marginalized prehistory and minimized the importance and contribution of alternative socioeconomic communities as well as the regions they inhabited.This dissertation addresses these gaps in the archaeological record of Yemen by focusing on Red Sea coastal cultures in the late prehistoric period (3000-900 BC) and by tracing interregional interaction between the coast and three adjacent zones. Multiple sources have been utilized including archaeological surveys, material from previously excavated sites, ethnographic and environmental research and historical sources. The variability and changes in settlement strategy and cultural interaction are documented systematically within different micro-environments of the Tihamah coastal plain. In order to address the regional imbalances in our reconstruction of Yemen, this coastal region is compared to that to its east, namely the adjacent western escarpment and the central highlands beyond it, and to its westerly neighbours along the Horn of Africa littoral across the Red Sea. This research illuminates the inextricable link that existed between humans and their landscape and how each cultural landscape gradually formed according to its physical and perceived limitations and potentials. Using the coastal communities – which existed at the balance of two divergent landscapes – as a point of departure, the intricacies and levels of cultural interaction by sea on the one hand, and by land on the other, are elucidated. Furthermore, it is shown that the variations of such interactions were in part responsible for changes in settlement pattern and strategy, and for the introduction of a number of ideologies and technologies that enabled large sedentary towns to expand and thrive prior to the emergence of the South Arabian kingdoms. This dissertation concludes by demonstrating how systematic survey strategies can reveal the continuities which link regions and periods to one another, even if indirectly, and how the long-term effects of small-scale interaction between groups and the perceived limitations of certain landscapes can have long-lasting implications for cultural development.; La montée et la chute des royaumes rivaux de l'Arabie du Sud (900 av. J.-C. - 600 ap. J.-C.) ont été largement documentées par des fouilles et des données épigraphiques. Cette période a été témoin de la croissance de sociétés complexes, chacune avec son panthéon, sa langue écrite et son architecture monumentale. Ces royaumes ont prospéré le long de la frange désertique du Yémen grâce aux systèmes agricoles organisés à grande échelle et du commerce d'aromatiques entre l'Inde, l'Afrique et la Méditerranée. Cependant, les développements qui ont conduit à la croissance de ces royaumes n’ont pas été suffisamment étudiés, laissant de grandes discontinuités dans notre reconstruction des archives régionales, chronologiques et culturelles. Ces lacunes résultent en partie de perspectives, de méthodologies et de théories obsolètes qui dominent la recherche scientifique dans la région depuis un demi-siècle. Ce qui s'est développé est un champ d'étude fragmenté et déséquilibré qui a marginalisé la préhistoire et minimisé l'importance et la contribution des communautés socio-économiques alternatives ainsi que les régions qu'elles habitaient.Cette thèse aborde ces lacunes archéologiques du Yémen en se basant sur les cultures côtières de la mer Rouge à la fin de la préhistoire (3000-900 av. J.-C.) et en retraçant les interactions interrégionales entre la côte et trois zones adjacentes. De multiples sources ont été utilisées, notamment des études archéologiques, des matériaux provenant de sites précédemment fouillés, des recherches ethnographiques et environnementales et des sources historiques. La variabilité et les changements dans la stratégie de peuplement et les interactions culturelles sont documentés systématiquement dans différents microenvironnements de la plaine côtière de la Tihamah. Afin de remédier aux déséquilibres régionaux dans notre reconstruction du Yémen, cette région côtière est comparée à celle située à l'est, à savoir l'escarpement occidental adjacent et les hauts plateaux, et de l'ouest le long du littoral de la Corne de l'Afrique. Cette recherche met en lumière le lien inextricable qui existait entre les humains et leur paysage et la façon dont chaque paysage culturel s'est progressivement formé en fonction de ses limites et de son potentiel, physiques et perçus. En prenant comme point de départ les communautés côtières – qui existaient à l’équilibre de deux paysages divergents – les subtilités et les niveaux d’interactions culturelles maritimes d’une part, et terrestres d’autre part, sont élucidées. En outre, il a été démontré que les variations de ces interactions étaient en partie responsables des changements de stratégie et de modèle de peuplement, ainsi que de l'introduction d'un certain nombre d'idéologies et de technologies permettant à de grandes villes sédentaires de s'étendre et de prospérer avant l'émergence des royaumes sudarabiques. Finalement, ces recherches montrent à tel point des stratégies de prospections systématiques peuvent révéler les continuités qui relient des régions et des périodes, même indirectement, et comment les effets à long terme d'interactions à petite échelle entre groupes ainsi que les limites perçues de certains paysages peuvent avoir des implications à longue durée pour le développement culturel.

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International audience; "Shahr Rabi'," The 'Amiriya Stucco Documentation Project, Rada'