Current Anthropology Volume 51, Number 6, December 2010 849  2010 by The Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research. All rights reserved. 0011-3204/2010/5106-0008$10.00. DOI: 10.1086/657397 New Light on Human Prehistory in the Arabo-Persian Gulf Oasis by Jeffrey I. Rose The emerging picture of prehistoric Arabia suggests that early modern humans were able to survive periodic hyperarid oscillations by contracting into environmental refugia around the coastal margins of the peninsula. This paper reviews new paleoenvironmental, archaeological, and genetic evidence from the Arabian Peninsula and southern Iran to explore the possibility of a demographic refugium dubbed the “Gulf Oasis,” which is posited to have been a vitally significant zone for populations residing in southwest Asia during the Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene. These data are used to assess the role of this large oasis, which, before being submerged beneath the waters of the Indian Ocean, was well watered by the Tigris, Euphrates, Karun, and Wadi Batin rivers as well as subterranean aquifers flowing beneath the Arabian subcontinent. Inverse to the amount of annual precipitation falling across the interior, reduced sea levels periodically exposed large portions of the Arabo-Persian Gulf, equal at times to the size of Great Britain. Therefore, when the hinterlands were desiccated, populations could have contracted into the Gulf Oasis to exploit its freshwater springs and rivers. This dynamic relationship between environmental amelioration/desiccation and marine transgression/ regression is thought to have driven demographic exchange into and out of this zone over the course of the Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene, as well as having played an important role in shaping the cultural evolution of local human populations during that interval. For Dilmun, the land of my lady’s heart, I will create long waterways, rivers and canals, whereby water will flow to quench the thirst of all beings and bring abundance to all that lives. (The promise of Enki the Lord of Sweet Waters to Ninhursag the Earth Mother, from the Sumerian cre- ation myth “Enki and Ninhursag”; Kramer 1945) Introduction: Out of Africa and Into Arabia? The investigation presented in this paper commences with the question of human expansion from Africa into Arabia during the Late Pleistocene (128,000–12,000 BP). Scholars often envision South Arabia as a population corridor, drawing on evidence from archaeozoology (Fernandes 2009; Tchernov 1992; Wildman et al. 2004), paleoanthropology (Lahr and Foley 1994, 1998; Stringer 2000), human genetics (Kivisild et al. 2004; Metspalu et al. 2004; Oppenheimer 2009; Quintana- Murci et al. 1999), computer modeling (Field, Petraglia, and Lahr 2007; Mithen and Reed 2002) and Paleolithic archae- Jeffrey I. Rose is a Research Fellow in the Institute of Archaeology and Antiquity at the University of Birmingham (Birmingham B15 2TT, United Kingdom [jeffrey.i.rose@gmail.com]). This paper was submitted 16 III 09 and accepted 26 II 10. ology (Caton-Thompson 1957; Petraglia and Alsharekh 2003; Rose 2004, 2006, 2007; Whalen, Davis, and Pease 1990). Such studies are based on the supposition that South Arabia was an important conduit throughout the Pleistocene, facilitating the expansion and contraction of biota to and from East Africa. Hence, the Paleolithic archaeological record of Arabia can be used to assess the southern route of dispersal for populations expanding out of Africa. Recent fieldwork conducted throughout the Arabian sub- continent indicates that human demography was far more complex than has been considered until now. Contrary to expectations of a well-trodden Stone Age highway, new data collected by archaeologists working in Yemen (Crassard 2009; Delagnes et al. 2008; Fedele 2009), Oman (Jagher 2009; Rose and Usik 2009), and the United Arab Emirates (UAE; Marks 2009; Uerpmann, Potts, and Uerpmann 2009) suggest that parts of the peninsula may have served as population refugia, enabling indigenous hunter-gatherers to survive in localized pockets during periodic climatic downturns (Rose and Pe- traglia 2009). Far from finding East African–derived lithic technologies spilling over into Arabia, freshly unearthed evi- dence points to a conspicuous lack of connection with African lithic industries following the last interglacial (Rose and Usik 2009). These industries tend to exhibit a distinct Arabian tradition, suggesting minimal demographic input from out- side the peninsula. Thus, it is germane to consider the pos-