US Edition12,000-Year-Old Camel Carvings Rewrite Arabian Desert History
The monumental engravings likely served as markers for seasonal water sources and travel routes, with 176 carvings found in three northern Saudi desert sites, researchers said.
- Michael Petraglia's 2023 expedition uncovered 176 engravings on 62 panels in the Nefud Desert, northern Saudi Arabia, dating to between 12,800 and 11,400 years ago.
- Playas and seasonal lakes confirm water bodies reappeared, supporting hunter-gatherer groups and enabling expansions into the desert interior, the Green Arabia Project shows.
- Excavations found 532 stone tools and Levant-style artefacts, while some panels sit on cliff faces up to 39 metres and one about 127 feet, featuring 130 life-sized figures.
- The findings, published in Nature Communications, push back human activity in the Nefud by about 2,000 years as part of the Green Arabia Project led with the Saudi Ministry of Culture's Heritage Commission.
- Michael Petraglia said, "The project's interdisciplinary approach has begun to fill a critical gap in the archaeological record of northern Arabia between the LGM and the Holocene, shedding light on the resilience and innovation of early desert communities," and Dr Faisal Al-Jibreen described the art as "a distinct cultural identity adapted to life in a challenging, arid environment.
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117 Articles
12,000-Year-Old Camel Engravings Found in Arabia Helped Travelers Find Water
Rock art panels at Jebel Arnaan in the Arabian desert. Credit: Maria Guagnin / CC BY 4.0 A sweeping archaeological survey in northern Saudi Arabia has revealed over 130 life-sized animal engravings, with camels featured most prominently. Experts now believe these ancient camel depictions in Arabia served not only as cultural expressions but also as markers of vital water sources in a once-arid desert. The engravings, carved into towering cliff f…
On a rock face high in Arabia's Nefud Desert, an international team of archaeologists has discovered 130 depictions of desert animals. The rock art is likely around 12,000 years old, making it the oldest known rock art from the region.
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der Standard DEA research team assumes that the monumental animal representations could have been important signposts to water places
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