Peer Reviewed Papers
Journal of Oman Stuies, 2021
The Archaeological Water Histories of Oman (ArWHO) Project began in 2011 with a focus on the role... more The Archaeological Water Histories of Oman (ArWHO) Project began in 2011 with a focus on the role of water availability in the long-term trajectories of ancient civilizations. From 2011 to 2018, the project surveyed Wilayat Yanqul and adjacent areas. This included wide-area reconnaissance survey as well as systematic sampling of a 100 km2 area northeast of the town of Yanqul. This paper reports basic results of the survey, including numbers of archaeological sites documented, and baseline analysis of associations with water resources. Important results include Paleolithic finds, discovery of new Neolithic sites, insights about Bronze Age monuments, new understanding of Iron Age trade, and broader understanding of small Islamic era settlements in mountainous hinterlands.
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Antiquity, 2019
The Empire of Aksum was one of Africa’s most influential ancient civilisations. Traditionally, mos... more The Empire of Aksum was one of Africa’s most influential ancient civilisations. Traditionally, most archaeological fieldwork has focused on the capital city of Aksum, but recent research at the site of Beta Samati has investigated a contemporaneous trade and religious centre located between Aksum and the Red Sea.The authors outline the discovery of the site and present important finds from the initial excavations, including an early basilica, inscriptions and a gold intaglio ring. From daily life and ritual praxis to international trade, this work illuminates the role of Beta Samati as an administrative centre and its significance within thewider Aksumite world.
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Remote Sensing, 2019
This study presents a new approach for detection and mapping of ancient slag heaps using 16-band ... more This study presents a new approach for detection and mapping of ancient slag heaps using 16-band multispectral satellite imagery. Understanding the distribution of slag (a byproduct of metal production) is of great importance for understanding how metallurgy shaped long-term economic and political change across the ancient Near East. This study presents results of slag mapping in Oman using WorldView-3 (WV3) satellite imagery. A semi-automated target detection routine using a mixed tuned matched filtering (MTMF) algorithm with scene-derived spectral signatures was applied to 16-band WV3 imagery. Associated field mapping at two copper production sites indicates that WorldView-3 satellite data can differentiate slag and background materials with a relatively high (>90%) overall accuracy. Although this method shows promise for future initiatives to discover and map slag deposits, difficulties in dark object spectral differentiation and underestimation of total slag coverage substantially limit its use. Resulting lower estimations of combined user's (61%) and producer's (45%) accuracies contextualize these limitations for slag specific classification. Accordingly, we describe potential approaches to address these challenges in future studies. As sites of ancient metallurgy in Oman are often located in areas of modern exploration and mining, detection and mapping of ancient slag heaps via satellite imagery can be helpful for discovery and monitoring of vulnerable cultural heritage sites.
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Soft‐stone vessels (made of the rock chloritite, which is comprised of the mineral chlorite) are ... more Soft‐stone vessels (made of the rock chloritite, which is comprised of the mineral chlorite) are an important component of the material culture record of ancient southeast Arabia. Given the prevalence of soft‐stone vessels in domestic and funerary contexts , and the natural geological occurrence of chloritite in the region, archaeologists have long suspected that soft‐stone vessels could have been produced in United Arab Emirates (UAE) or Oman. However, over many decades of research very few pieces of worked raw material or unfinished vessel fragments have been recovered in Arabia. This changed dramatically in 2015 with the discovery of the Iron Age village of Aqir al‐Shamoos where thousands of raw, worked, and unfinished pieces attest to soft‐ stone vessel manufacture. Aqir al‐Shamoos continues to yield new insights regarding soft‐stone vessel production, but the source of raw material used to craft these objects initially remained unknown as no natural chloritite deposits had been found in the immediate vicinity of the site. We present results of hyperspectral satellite imagery target detection used to search for natural surface occurrences of chloritite near Aqir al‐Shamoos. Despite limitations in carbonate and phyllosilicate mineral discrimination , field survey of the satellite detection results revealed chloritite outcrops in the ophiolite formation mountains 1.4 km northwest of Aqir al‐Shamoos near the newly discovered archaeological site of 'Waby al‐Zady. Reflectance spectroscopy (0.35–2.5 μm) of material from multiple chloritite sources indicates that chloritite from 'Waby al‐Zady is spectrally very similar to material at Aqir al‐Shamoos but quite different in comparison with material from other locations. These findings indicate that: (1) hyperspectral satellite imagery target detection can be useful for chloritite prospection, (2) 'Waby al‐Zady (or somewhere very nearby) was probably the source of chloritite used at Aqir al‐Shamoos, and (3) chloritite reflection spectra may be useful for distinguishing chloritite from different sources.
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Subsurface imaging in arid regions is a well-known application of satellite Synthetic Aperture Ra... more Subsurface imaging in arid regions is a well-known application of satellite Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR). Archaeological prospection has often focused on L-band SAR sensors, given the ability of longer wavelengths to penetrate more deeply into sand. In contrast, this study demonstrates capabilities of shorter-wavelength, but higher spatial resolution, C-band and X-band SAR sensors in archaeological subsurface imaging at the site of 'Uqdat al-Bakrah (Safah), Oman. Despite having varying parameters and acquisitions, both the X-band and C-band images analyzed were able to identify a subsurface paleo-channel that is not visible on the ground surface. This feature was first identified through Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) survey, then recognized in the SAR imagery and further verified by test excavations. Both the GPR and the excavations reveal the base of the paleo-channel at a depth of 0.6 m–0.7 m. Hence, both X-band and C-band wavelengths are appropriate for subsurface archaeological prospection in suitable (dry silt and sand) conditions with specific acquisition parameters. Moreover, these results offer important new insights into the paleo-environmental context of ancient metal-working at 'Uqdat al-Bakrah and demonstrate surface water flow roughly contemporary with the site's occupation.
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Soft-stone vessels are a prominent feature of ancient culture throughout south-east Arabia and th... more Soft-stone vessels are a prominent feature of ancient culture throughout south-east Arabia and the Gulf. Chlorite and steatite occur naturally in the al-Hajar Mountains of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Oman; but until now, apart from the discovery of a few unfinished pieces, ancient production of soft-stone vessels had yet to be documented in Arabia. This paper reports the discovery and preliminary analysis of softstone vessel production at the site of Aqir al-Shamoos. At this small and secluded mountain village, a range of soft-stone vessels that are well known in the south-east Arabian Iron Age were produced on a scale far beyond what was needed for local consumption.
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The Empire of Aksum was one of Africa’s most influential ancient civilisations. Traditionally, mo... more The Empire of Aksum was one of Africa’s most influential ancient civilisations. Traditionally, most archaeological fieldwork has focused on the capital city of Aksum, but recent research at the site of Beta Samati has investigated a contemporaneous trade and religious centre located between Aksumand the Red Sea.The authors outline the discovery of the site and present important finds from the initial excavations, including an early basilica, inscriptions and a gold intaglio ring. From daily life and ritual praxis to international trade, this work illuminates the role of Beta Samati as an administrative centre and its significance within the wider Aksumite world.
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Book Chapters
Archaeology of the Night: Life After Dark in the Ancient World
This book chapter in the 'Archaeology of the Night: Life After Dark in the Ancient World' (2017),... more This book chapter in the 'Archaeology of the Night: Life After Dark in the Ancient World' (2017), edited by Nancy Gonlin and April Nowell, examines the role of the night in past and present agricultural activities in Oman. Please use the following link for access to the paper: https://muse.jhu.edu/chapter/2063741
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Peer-Reviewed Publications
African Archaeological Review, 2020
For at least four decades, archaeologists have identified irrigation as playing a potentially maj... more For at least four decades, archaeologists have identified irrigation as playing a potentially major role in the rise of Aksumite civilization. Based on a systematic survey covering the area between Aksum and Yeha (Ethiopia), Joseph Michels proposed that large-scale irrigation systems introduced from Southwest Arabia contributed to the rise of Yeha as a major center of Pre-Aksumite civilization. To evaluate spatial patterning of archaeological sites with respect to water availability, this paper reports on results from archaeological survey of a 100 km 2 region surrounding Yeha conducted by the Southern Red Sea Archaeological Histories (SRSAH) Project from 2009 to 2016. The SRSAH Project recorded 84 sites dating from the Pre-Aksumite to the Post-Aksumite periods (c.800 BCE to 900 CE). No ancient irrigation systems were identified and results do not show a correlation between archaeological sites and water resources. This suggests that irrigation was less important than Michels contended and that rainfed agriculture, terraces, and small-scale irrigation comparable with practices evident in the region today were sufficient to sustain ancient populations.
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Antiquity, 2019
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