Full length article Prehistory and palaeoenvironments of the western Nefud Desert, Saudi Arabia Paul S. Breeze a, ⁎, Huw S. Groucutt b , Nick A. Drake a , Julien Louys c , Eleanor M.L. Scerri b , Simon J. Armitage d , Iyad S.A. Zalmout e , Abdullah M. Memesh e , Mohammed A. Haptari e , Saleh A. Soubhi e , Adel H. Matari e , Muhammad Zahir f , Abdulaziz Al-Omari g , Abdullah M. Alsharekh h , Michael D. Petraglia i a Department of Geography, King's College London, UK b School of Archaeology, Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK c School of Culture, History, and Languages, ANU College of Asia and the Pacific, The Australian National University, Canberra, Australia d Department of Geography, Royal Holloway, University of London, UK e Department of Sedimentary Rocks and Paleontology, Saudi Geological Survey, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia f Department of Archaeology, Hazara University, Mansehra, 21300, Pakistan g Saudi Commission for Tourism and National Heritage, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia h Department of Archaeology, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia i The Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, Jena, Germany abstract article info Article history: Received 13 October 2016 Received in revised form 8 February 2017 Accepted 14 February 2017 Available online xxxx Mid-latitude dune fields offer significant records of human occupations in southwest Asia, reflecting human re- sponses to past climate changes. Currently arid, but episodically wetter in the past, the Nefud desert of northern Saudi Arabia provides numerous examples of human-environment interactions and population movements in the desert belt. Here we describe results from interdisciplinary surveys in the western Nefud that targeted palaeolake deposits identified using satellite imagery. Surveys indicate the presence of thousands of discrete palaeolakes and palaeowetlands, providing valuable palaeoenvironmental records, and numerous archaeological and palaeontological assemblages. Geomorphological investigations suggest that many further deposits remain buried. Forty-six prehistoric archaeological sites have been identified in association with freshwater deposits, spanning the Lower Palaeolithic to the pre-Islamic Holocene. Lower Palaeolithic sites appear concentrated close to raw material sources near the Nefud fringe, despite the presence of freshwater and fauna deeper in the dune field. Middle Palaeolithic occupations extend more broadly, and by the early Holocene humans were at least periodically occupying areas deep in the desert. We present the first records of Neolithic sites in this dune field, including substantial hearth complexes distributed relatively deep within the dunes, potentially indi- cating increased mobility during this period. Later Holocene sites with stone structures are present around the dune fringes. Our results indicate that, during wet periods of the Pleistocene and Holocene, water in the western Nefud may have been more readily available than elsewhere in northern Arabia due to the high density of depres- sions where wetlands can form. The high frequency of lakes or marshes appears to have facilitated human occu- pations and dispersal through the region. © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Palaeolakes Nefud Desert Saudi Arabia Prehistory Palaeontology Palaeoenvironments 1. Introduction The Nefud Desert is the northern-most of the major Arabian sand seas (Fig. 1A). Covering ~58,500 km 2 between latitudes 27°8′ and 29°45′, the Nefud is dominated by densely-packed dunes that can reach 80 m or more in height (Fig. 1B), a formidable barrier to overland movement. The Nefud is arid, receiving on average between 30 and 90 mm of rainfall a year (Edgell, 2006, pp. 144), although local flora is semi-arid in character (Schulz and Whitney, 1985) and rare heavy rainfall events can produce standing water that persists on playas for months. Although currently semi to hyper-arid, palaeolake deposits in interdune depressions demonstrate that significant climatic changes during the past episodically resulted in the Nefud being considerably wetter than at present (Petraglia et al., 2011, 2012; Thomas et al., 1998; Schulz and Whitney, 1986; Garrard et al., 1981). Correlation of dates from these deposits with data from the wider Saharo-Arabian re- gion initially suggested they related to wetter conditions during the Early Pleistocene (Thomas et al., 1998; Anton, 1984) and increased ep- isodic moisture during the Late Pleistocene and Holocene (Schulz and Whitney, 1986; Hötzl et al., 1978). However, recent re-evaluations have indicated that Middle and Late Pleistocene humid phases were Archaeological Research in Asia xxx (2017) xxx–xxx ⁎ Corresponding author. E-mail address: paul.s.breeze@kcl.ac.uk (P.S. Breeze). ARA-00046; No of Pages 16 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ara.2017.02.002 2352-2267/© 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Archaeological Research in Asia journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ara Please cite this article as: Breeze, P.S., et al., Prehistory and palaeoenvironments of the western Nefud Desert, Saudi Arabia, Archaeological Re- search in Asia (2017), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ara.2017.02.002