The earliest signs of human presence on the Arabian peninsula appear c. 8000 BCE, before the Stone Age. The Earth is warming up after the end of the last Ice Age, which ends just over a thousand years before.
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Savanna conditions, warm to hot most of the year, evolve into arid desert. The earliest human settlers, nomadic hunter gatherers, travel from the Levant into the western Arabian peninsula.
The fertile mountainous coasts are populated by wildlife such as leopards, wolves, lions, tigers, striped hyenas, rock hyrax and ancestors of dromedary camels. Plants such as the date palm, frankincense, acacia and juniper trees are native to the Arabian Peninsula.
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Around 5000 BCE, flint tools similar to those of the Levant are used in Qatar in eastern Arabia on today's Persian Gulf. The east coast of the Arabian Peninsula is first settled in the Neolithic period.
Mesopotamians establish trade with local fishermen along the Gulf coast. Archaeologists also find pottery from southern Mesopotamia dating to the same time period, as far south as Oman.
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Bitumen, a sticky dense liquid petroleum distillate, is discovered in the caulking of Arabian reed boats. It's thought to be acquired by trade. Bitumen is naturally sourced in places like Iran and was used there c. 7000 - 6000 BCE. Use of bitumen is also found at ancient Tell Abraq, Oman.
A major source is the Zargos Mountains of the north Syrian desert. The first use of bitumen is in the age of the Neanderthals c. 40,000 years ago, to fasten stone tools like axes to handles.
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On the Arabian Peninsula, pottery is made on-site by c. 4000 BCE. The date palm is domesticated in the Persian Gulf c. 3800 BCE. A number of encampments appear in the Riyadh area, further inland. Today Riyadh is the capital and largest city of Saudi Arabia.
Among the prehistoric and Eurasian Bronze Age (c. 3300 - 1200 BCE) archaeological sites in the Riyadh area, the largest is Thamamah. A settlement of circular stone buildings is built on the terrace of a wadi, or seasonal river course.
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Evidence of agriculture first appears c. 3100 BCE. Domesticated grains and cereals and cultivated dates are grown in the area of Abu Dhabi, the capital city of today's United Arab Emirates.
Copper mining begins in Oman (possibly called Magan in later Mesopotamian texts). By c. 3000 BCE, domestic livestock including cattle, sheep, and goats are popular in eastern Arabia, the region Mesopotamians call Dilmum.
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Local imitations of Mesopotamian pottery appear. A copper bull's head, vases of chlorite (a mineral present in clay), and a limestone figurine of a Mesopotamian worshipper are found at the important historical site of Tarut (Tārūt, Tarout), an island off the east coast. The vases are in various stages of finishing, thought to be manufactured locally.
Sometime between 3000 and 2000 BCE the wild native dromedary camel is domesticated. From the 2nd millennium BCE on, the one-humped camel is documented in use for riding and transport.
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Archaeological finds at Tell Abraq show human occupation through several historical periods. Building and construction activity begins at the site c. 2500 BC. The Umm an-Nar culture is a powerful center of civilization until 200 AD, a reign of about 2700 years.
By c. 2500 BCE, the Umm an-Nar culture settles Tell Abraq on the Oman peninsula in southeast Arabia. The workshop of a coppersmith is later uncovered, the evidence suggesting copper is smelted on an industrial level.
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Early metallurgy is the basis of the later alchemy developed in the Arabian Peninsula. By c. 2000 BCE, the Persian Gulf becomes a vital route of contact and Bronze Age trade between the Mesopotamians and the people of the Indus River Valley civilization.
Another important trading culture, the Indus River Valley people once occupied a broad area including today's northeast Afghanistan to Pakistan and northwest India. One of the worlds's earliest civilizations, the Indus River culture influences the world for two thousand years, from c. 3300 - 1300 BCE.
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