Late Palaeolithic core-reduction strategies in Dhofar, Oman Yamandú Hilbert, JeffreY rose & ricHard roberts Summary Systematic surveys conducted in the Dhofar Governorate of Oman have produced over 300 surface sites, as well as excavation of in situ archaeological deposits. A number of these assemblages have been classiied as part of the Nejd Leptolithic Tradition (NLT). This study describes a selection of these assemblages from sites distributed across the southern and central Najd plateau in Dhofar, including both surface scatters and stratiied rock shelters. The NLT is broadly characterized by the reduction of blades struck from single-platform cores with lat laking surfaces, in conjunction with the façonnage manufacture of bifacial implements. Based on technological analysis and artefact conjoins, we distinguish three separate core reduction strategies within the NLT. Optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dates from three in situ assemblages allow us to begin to deine temporal variability within this technological continuum. Keywords: Najd plateau, Late Palaeolithic, blade technology, lithic analysis, Dhofar Introduction: the Nejd Leptolithic Tradition During the 2004–2011 campaigns of the Dhofar Archaeological Project (DAP), a number of assemblages were discovered throughout the Najd plateau in the Dhofar region of south-western Oman, which can be broadly classiied as the Nejd Leptolithic (Rose 2006; Rose & Usik 2009). Three stratiied Nejd Leptolithic sites from the southern plateau have since yielded optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dates with age estimates between approximately 14 and 7 ka BP, representing the irst known Terminal Pleistocene occupation in the Arabian Peninsula. This paper describes a selection of Nejd Leptolithic assemblages and aims to deine technological variability within this tradition. Given the disparities between these uniquely South Arabian assemblages and coeval lithic industries found in Africa and the Levant, we propose a regionally distinct taxonomic category — the Arabian Late Palaeolithic (ALP) — to describe this technological tradition. The term ‘Nejd Leptolithic’ was initially proposed by Rose (2006) to refer to a series of surface scatters that are ubiquitous across the Najd plateau, characterized by the use of recurrent blade reduction strategies. Such assemblages have long been known from southern Arabia; in the 1970s, the Harvard archaeological survey to Oman recorded an extensive blade scatter near BiΜr Khasfah, in the north-eastern portion of the Najd plateau (Pullar 1974). Some 500 km to the north-east, numerous large, high-density blade scatters were mapped throughout the Дawshī/Дuqf depressions in central Oman (Biagi 1994; Rose 2006; Jagher 2009; Jagher & Pümpin 2010). Amirkhanov (1994; 2006), Rose (2002), and Crassard (2008a; 2008b) report potentially related blade assemblages across central and eastern Yemen. Hence, there is a virtually unbroken chain of leptolithic occurrences spanning the ДaΡramawt valley in central Yemen, extending into al-Mahrah Province of eastern Yemen, across Dhofar in southern Oman, and terminating south of the Дajar Mountains in central Oman. DAP’s recent investigations in Dhofar show that it is not one, but a suite of features including blade technology, façonnage reduction, and a distinct toolkit that deines the Nejd Leptolithic Tradition. In many cases, the hallmark blade reduction strategy is accompanied by façonnage manufacture of soft-hammer foliates, ovates, and lanceolates, ‘heavy-duty’ bifaces, and a variety of trifacially worked implements. Struck blanks were transformed into an array of unifacial tools, including burins (mainly on truncations), diverse scraper types, partially retouched points, and Fasad points (Pullar 1974; Charpentier 1996; Rose & Usik 2009). As this paper is Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies 42 (2012): 1–18