Three needs are fundamental to survival: food, water and shelter. At least two of these three needs were met by a nearly mile-long lava tube located about 75 miles north of Medina, Saudi Arabia, for at least 7,000 years, according to new research.
The lava tube in question is called Umm Jirsan, the longest of the lava tubes in Saudi Arabia’s Harrat Khaybar volcanic field. Today, wolves, foxes and snakes inhabit the cave, but it was once a popular spot for human pastoralists and their domesticated animals. The new study, published today in the journal PLoS One, examined faunal remains and petroglyphs in the region and adds to a growing body of research into the system.
“The findings at Umm Jirsan create a new type of archaeological site in the region, and one where organic material such as bones and deep-layered sediments are much better preserved,” said Mathew Stewart, a zooarchaeologist at Griffith University in Australia and lead author of the paper. research. , in an email to Gizmodo. “We didn’t expect to find archeology in Umm Jirsan. In fact, we were mainly interested in seeing the large reserves of bones that had been previously reported.”
A team that included Stewart found evidence in 2021 that striped hyenas were creating bone caches at the back of the cave. There are hundreds of thousands of bones in Umm Jirsan, the team found, belonging to at least 40 species and dating from the Neolithic to the Victorian era.
Although the oldest dated faunal remains in the cave are about 7,000 years old, Stewart told Gizmodo that animals have likely been using the lava tubes since they formed millions of years ago. According to the Smithsonian Institution’s Global Volcanism Program, seven of the lava flows in Harrat Khaybar are less than 1,500 years old, and a 2022 study found the region still has potential for activity.
In their new paper, the researchers reported evidence for human occupation of the lava tube between the Neolithic and Bronze Ages – in other words, people used the lava tube for millennia. Isotopic analysis of the human remains in the cave revealed an increase in foods in their diet that contained high levels of a particular isotope of carbon associated with oasis agriculture.
But the team concluded that Umm Jirsan was probably not permanently occupied. Rather, they think it was a convenient place for shepherds to stop and provide shade and water for their flocks. Based on human use of the environment – as evidenced by nearby petroglyphs and other faunal data – the team hypothesized that the lava tube was “located along a pastoral route connecting important oases.” So you can see Umm Jirsan more as an old truck stop than as a place of residence.
The rock art described by the team was found in a nearby collapsed lava tube northeast of Umm Jirsan. The researchers reported 16 rock art panels depicting cattle, sheep, goats and possibly ibex.
Although humans were not permanently present in the lava tube, the natural structure provided shelter for humans and their herds for thousands of years. In the harsh desert environment, the promise of a break from the sun, wind and heat would have made Umm Jirsan a perfect prehistoric pit stop.
More: Hyenas left a huge pile of bones in a Saudi Arabian lava tube
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