Multi-scale Acheulean landscape survey in the Arabian Desert Richard P. Jennings a, * , Ceri Shipton b , Paul Breeze c , Patrick Cuthbertson a , Marco Antonio Bernal a , W.M.C. Oshan Wedage d , Nick A. Drake c , Tom S. White a , Huw S. Groucutt a , Ash Parton a , Laine Clark-Balzan a , Christopher Stimpson a , Abdul-Aziz al Omari e , Abdullah Alsharekh f , Michael D. Petraglia a a School of Archaeology, Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art, University of Oxford, New Barnett House, 28 Little Clarendon Street, OX1 2HU Oxford, United Kingdom b School of Social Science, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Queensland, QLD 4072, Australia c Department of Geography, King's College London, K4U.06 Strand Campus, London WC2R 2LS, United Kingdom d Department of Archaeology, Sir Marcus Fernando Mawatha, Colombo 07, Sri Lanka e The Saudi Commission for Tourism and Antiquities, P.O Box 66680, Riyadh 11586, Saudi Arabia f Department of Archaeology, College of Tourism and Archaeology, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia article info Article history: Available online xxx Keywords: Acheulean Lower Palaeolithic Landscape Arabia Dyke Survey abstract The interpretation of Acheulean landscape use through the analysis of artefact distributions over a range of environmental settings is vital for understanding early hominin behaviour. Such approaches have been successfully applied in areas such as East Africa and South Africa, where long-term and sustained archaeological research has led to the development of robust environmental frameworks within which to analyse hominin land-use patterns. Much less is known about Acheulean hominin behaviour in the Arabian Peninsula, which is increasingly being recognised as an important area for studying early hominin dispersals and adaptations to new environments. To address this lacuna, we have undertaken the first multi-scale systematic survey of Acheulean occupation evidence at Dawadmi, in the centre of the Arabian Peninsula. Specifically, we carried out systematic transect surveys over a large andesite dyke at Saffaqah, on which the majority of 26 known Acheulean sites are associated, as well as across narrow drainage channels, desert pavements and hills located within 5 km of the dyke. Survey transects also crossed neighbouring dykes and adjacent landscape units with a 25  20 km area. Our surveys at Saf- faqah have led to the discovery of 14 new Acheulean sites. Initial lithic analyses reveal differences be- tween sites in terms of typology, but further work on the assemblages is required to determine if these differences are behavioural or a product of post depositional processes. A broad regional survey was undertaken to identify the full extent of Acheulean activity around Dawadmi. This led to the discovery of a further 22 sites. There is a strong correspondence between Acheulean sites and fine-grained andesite dykes, which were major lithic raw material sources. No Acheulean sites in the study area were found away from dykes or their adjacent landscape units. Based on dyke distributions, the geographic range of Acheulean activity is estimated to be 100  55 km, making Dawadmi one of the largest Acheulean landscapes in the world. © 2015 Elsevier Ltd and INQUA. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction The majority of Acheulean sites investigated are individual, spatially limited site distributions where stone artefacts, animal bones and, occasionally, other forms of environmental evidence have survived, such as at Olduvai Gorge (Leakey, 1971), Olorgesailie (Potts et al., 1999), Boxgrove (Roberts and Parfitt, 1999), and Gesher Benot Ya'aqov (Goren-Inbar et al., 2000). In contrast, Acheulean sites that occur in large numbers over areas >50 km 2 are a rare * Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: richard.jennings@rlaha.ox.ac.uk (R.P. Jennings), c.shipton@uq. edu.au (C. Shipton), Paul.breeze@kcl.ac.uk (P. Breeze), Patrick.cuthbertson@arch.ox. ac.uk (P. Cuthbertson), marco.bernal@arch.ox.ac.uk (M.A. Bernal), oshan.wedage@ gmail.com (W.M.C.O. Wedage), nick.drake@kcl.ac.uk (N.A. Drake), tom.white@ rlaha.ox.ac.uk (T.S. White), huw.groucutt@rlaha.ox.ac.uk (H.S. Groucutt), ash. parton@rlaha.ox.ac.uk (A. Parton), laine.clark-balzan@rlaha.ox.ac.uk (L. Clark- Balzan), christopher.stimpson@rlaha.ox.ac.uk (C. Stimpson), Alamri@scta.gov.sa (A.-A. al Omari), asharekh@hotmail.com (A. Alsharekh), michael.petraglia@rlaha. ox.ac.uk (M.D. Petraglia). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Quaternary International journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/quaint http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.quaint.2015.01.028 1040-6182/© 2015 Elsevier Ltd and INQUA. All rights reserved. Quaternary International xxx (2015) 1e24 Please cite this article in press as: Jennings, R.P., et al., Multi-scale Acheulean landscape survey in the Arabian Desert, Quaternary International (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.quaint.2015.01.028