The Archaeology of the United Arab Emirates is the study of past societies in the United Arab Emirates, formerly the Trucial States, through surviving artefacts of human material culture.
The United Arab Emirates was formerly populated by inhabitants of a number of coastal and inland settlements, with human remains pointing to a pattern of transmigration and settlement as far back as 125,000 years. Prehistoric settlement in the UAE spanned the Neolithic, with a number of distinctive eras of ancient settlement including the Stone Age Arabian Bifacial and Ubaid cultures from 5,000 to 3,100 BCE; the Hafit period with its distinctive beehive shaped tombs and Jemdet Nasr pottery, from 3,200 to 2,600 BCE; the Umm Al Nar period from 2,600 to 2,000 BCE; the Wadi Suq culture from 2,000 to 1,300 BCE and the three Iron Ages of the UAE.
The UAE's Iron Age I spanned 1,200–1,000 BCE; Iron Age II, 1,000–600 BCE and Iron Age III from 600 to 300 BCE. This was followed by the Hellenistic Mleiha (or Late Pre-Islamic) era, from 300 BCE onwards through to the Islamic era which commenced with the culmination of the 7th century Ridda Wars.
The remains of settlements, burials and other extensive evidence of human habitation throughout these eras is littered throughout the UAE, with many extensive finds of rich materials in the shape of pottery, jewellery, weapons and both human and animal remains providing archaeologists and researchers with an increasingly sophisticated picture of longstanding involvement in regional trade alongside nomadic cultures eking out a living from the frequently arid and inhospitable desert and mountain environment of the UAE.
The first modern digs to take place in the Trucial States were led by teams from the Danish Moesgaard Museum in 1959 and focused on the island of Umm Al Nar before going on to investigate the beehive tombs in and around the area of Al Ain (then often still known as Buraimi) in the emirate of Abu Dhabi.
First discoveries
The first archaeological excavations in the UAE were in 1959, led by Peter Glob and his assistant Geoffrey Bibby. Glob was a professor at Aarhus University and director of its Moesgaard Museum. He had undertaken a series of digs in Bahrain and was contacted by the director of Abu Dhabi Marine Areas Ltd, an oil company, Temple Hillyard, who invited them to visit a cistern and some potential grave sites he had found on the small island of Umm Al Nar (then referred to as Umm an-Nar), having been directed to the site by the-then Ruler of Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Shakhbut bin Sultan Al Nahyan. Hillyard had already determined that the tumuli were 'reminiscent of the Bronze Age one in Bahrain'.
Glob and Bibby's first expedition to the Trucial States took place from 15 February to 29 March 1959, with a £2,000 budget. They lived in a house built from areesh - palm fronds - on the island. Supplies were provided by oil company ADMA's stores on Das Island, including luxuries such as tinned salmon, steak, pork cutlets and lamb chops, cheese and cream crackers. Fourteen local workers was brought in to help with digginer at a salary of five rupees daily each.
During excavations at Umm Al Nar, the Ruler's brother, Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan and his brother Hazza visited the dig and told the disbelieving archaeologists that there were many more such tumuli in Al Ain. He invited them to visit and led them to a group of some 317 burial cairns. Zayed later took members of the Danish team to other sites in the area, including a low tell which is now known as Rumailah, a significant Iron Age site.
It was not to be until 1970 that Danish archaeologist Karen Frifelt, preparing a Festschrift (a collection of articles brought together in celebration of a notable academic) for Glob's sixtieth birthday, linked the pottery that Glob's team took from the burials in the shadow of Jebel Hafit to the Sumerian Jemdet Nasr period (3100–2900 BCE). The discovery led to new focus on the beehive graves of Al Ain in the following two years – and the discovery of a new, earlier, cultural period in UAE history, the Hafit Period (3200–2600 BCE).
Subsequent excavations by teams from Iraq in the 1970s unveiled the Jebel Buhais site, as well as the hugely significant ancient city of Ed Dur. Since then, digs have taken place around the UAE by teams from universities in France, Spain, Germany, Jordan, Australia, and the UK.
Prehistory The Mleiha Archaeological Centre displays evidence of the oldest archaeological finds in the UAE, the prehistoric Faya-1 collection, now a UNESCO World Heritage Site, which dates human occupation in the area to 130,000–120,000 BCE, and has been linked to the movement of the first anthropologically modern humans from Africa to populate the world, before finds of a yet earlier date (50,000 years) had been found at Misliya cave in the Southern Levant. The Faya discovery, made in 2011, includes primitive hand-axes, as well as several kinds of scrapers and perforators, which resemble those used by early modern humans in East Africa. Through the technique of thermoluminescence dating the artefacts were placed at 125,000 years old. Before the discovery in the Levant, this had been the earliest evidence of modern humans found anywhere outside Africa, and implies modern humans left Africa much earlier than previously thought. Mleiha is also the site of Neolithic as well as Umm Al Nar period burials, and gives its name to the Hellenistic Mleiha period (now more commonly referred to as the 'Pre-Islamic'), from 300 BCE onwards, characterised by the extensive fortified compound, 'Mleiha Fort', which was discovered in the late 1990s and is thought to have been possibly the seat of an ancient South Arabian kingdom. Recent (2017) studies using Ground Penetrating Radar have uncovered significant unexcavated PIR era buildings and structures in the area around Mleiha.
The oldest radiometrically dated inland burial site in the UAE is the extensive necropolis at Jebel Buhais. The site, located near Madam, in Sharjah, consists of burial sites spanning the Stone, Bronze, Iron and pre-Islamic ages of human settlement in the UAE. Burials at Jebel Buhais (Jebel is Arabic for mountain) date back to the 5th millennium BCE.
Arabian Neolithic
Recent archaeological work by the Department of Culture and Tourism – Abu Dhabi (DCT) has significantly expanded knowledge of the Arabian Neolithic period (c. 6600–3300 BCE) in the UAE, particularly through excavations on the offshore islands of the Al Dhafra region of Abu Dhabi emirate and along the northern UAE coastline.
On Ghagha Island, excavations conducted between 2019 and 2024 by DCT Abu Dhabi have uncovered three successive Neolithic sites (GHG0014, GHG0063, GHG0088). The site of GHG0014, dated to c. 6600–6500 cal. BCE, contains what are currently the oldest known stone-built structures in the Arabian Gulf region. The site of GHG0088, dated to c. 6400–5400 cal. BCE, has yielded stone architecture, a human funerary deposit, marine shell tools, plaster vessels, and a lithic industry. Faunal analysis indicates a subsistence economy heavily reliant on marine resources. A hiatus in occupation attributed to aridification associated with the 8.2 kiloyear event separates the site's two main phases of occupation.
Marawah Island, located in the western Abu Dhabi emirate, hosts one of the most significant Neolithic settlement and funerary complexes in the Arabian Gulf. The site of MR11 comprises a group of stone-built mounds (Areas A to G), radiocarbon-dated to between c. 5800 and 5500 BCE, and has been under excavation by DCT Abu Dhabi since 2004. The architectural organisation includes a tripartite house (Area A), multi-roomed structures (Areas B and C), and a mortuary complex (Area F). Excavations of Area F have revealed several Neolithic interments deposited within the cells of the main structure, including the oldest known primary Neolithic burial in the UAE, dated to c. 5700 cal. BCE. At least five individuals were recovered from a single cell, with larger domestic rooms flanked by smaller dedicated burial chambers, providing new insight into the funerary practices and social organisation of Arabian Neolithic island communities. MR11 has also yielded the earliest known evidence of pearling in the Arabian Gulf, as well as what is considered the oldest known Ubaid pottery vessel recovered in situ in the region, a jar dated to c. 5550 BCE and indicative of long-distance exchange networks extending to Mesopotamia during the Neolithic.
Delma Island, also in the Al Dhafra region, has yielded Neolithic and Ubaid-period remains including lithics, faunal assemblages, and early evidence of date palm exploitation, indicative of sustained maritime occupation from the late sixth millennium BCE.
Along the northern UAE coastline, the French Archaeological Mission in the United Arab Emirates has excavated a series of Neolithic shell midden sites in the lagoon environment of Umm al-Quwain emirate. The site of UAQ2, occupied from the late sixth to the early fourth millennium BCE, represents one of the longest stratigraphic Neolithic sequences known in the Arabian Gulf, with evidence of diversified fishing economies, pastoral activity, and one of the oldest known burial grounds in the region. The nearby site of Akab, located on a small islet within the Umm al-Quwain lagoon and dated to c. 4600–3500 BCE, is one of the most remarkable Neolithic coastal sites in Eastern Arabia. Excavations by the French Archaeological Mission in the United Arab Emirates have revealed a settlement combining intensive fishing with specialised maritime hunting and evidence of early pearling. The site has yielded one of the largest ichthyofaunal assemblages from the Arabian Neolithic, comprising over 37,000 fish remains from more than 50 species, documenting intensive exploitation of coastal pelagic and reef fish populations. Numerous natural pearls were recovered from the excavations alongside shell hooks manufactured from pearl oyster shell, constituting some of the earliest known direct evidence of pearl fishing in the Arabian Gulf. The site is particularly noted for the discovery of a dugong bone mound — a structured platform of dugong skulls laid in parallel and ribs arranged in sets, dated to c. 3500–3300 BCE and interpreted as the oldest known ritual sanctuary in Arabia and the oldest ceremonial structure dedicated to a marine mammal documented anywhere in the world. This feature has been compared to analogous dugong bone platforms recorded ethnographically in the Torres Strait and is thought to reflect the ritual significance of dugong hunting in the symbolic practices of Neolithic coastal communities of the Gulf.
These discoveries collectively establish the UAE coastline and its offshore islands as a zone of sustained early coastal sedentarism in the Arabian Gulf, with communities sustaining themselves through diversified marine resource exploitation including fishing, shellfishing, and pearling. The evidence predates previously documented domestic architecture in the region by several centuries and contributes to ongoing revisions of Neolithisation models for the Arabian Peninsula.
The archaeological record shows that the Arabian Neolithic period progressively came to an end in eastern Arabia and the Oman peninsula throughout the 4th millennium BC, just after the phase of lake lowering and onset of dune reactivation. Apart from Akab, there is rare evidence of human presence in the area for approximately 1,000 years, the so-called 'Dark Millennium. This is thought to be consistent with changing patterns of human life as a result of climate change: a spring discovered at Jebel Buhais dried up at this stage, an event contemporaneous with similar discoveries pointing to increased aridity in the interior of Oman. Throughout Southern Arabia, evidence of human inland settlement in the 3rd millennium BCE is scant.
Ed-Dur