The end of the 3rd millennium was a time of significant transformation in south-east Arabia (the United Arab Emirates and northern Oman). The cultural homogeneity of the preceding Early Bronze Age, Umm an-Nar period (c. 2700–2000 BC) came to an end and gave way to the Middle Bronze Age, Wadi Suq period (2000–1600 BC). Settlements changed, and possibly began to decline in size and number, the economy changed for many and the important trade in copper ore seems to have declined. In addition, there was a marked change in funerary practices as new types of tombs appeared – both collective and individual burials. All of this took place within the context of a climatic shift that led to a decline in rainfall across many parts of the region. Much of the countryside of south-eastern Iran was abandoned and the urban period of the Indus Valley was weakening. In the midst of this turmoil, the limited agricultural plains of northern Ras al-Khaimah appear to have developed into an island where there was greater continuity than elsewhere. This book reports on the excavation of a number of monumental collective tombs that were built there and used through the early part of the 2nd millennium. The way that they were constructed and used as well as the burial goods that they contain throw light on the population of this area, and give some indication of how and why it was that life continued in this small pocket in a way that was different to surrounding regions.

CONTENTS: Abdol Rauh Yaccob, British policy on Arabia before the First World War: an internal argument; Adrian G. Parker &. Jeffrey I. Rose, Climate change and human origins in southern Arabia; Alexandrine Guerin & Faysal Abdallah al-Na'imi, Nineteenth century settlement patterns at Zekrit, Qatar: pottery, tribes and territory; Anthony E. Marks, Into Arabia, perhaps, but if so, from where?; Audrey Peli, A history of the Ziyadids through their coinage (203- 442/818-1050); Aurelie Daems & An De Waele, Some reflections on human-animal burials from pre-Islamic south-east Arabia (poster); Brian Ulrich, The Azd migrations reconsidered: narratives of 'Amr Muzayqiya and Malik b. Fahm in historiographic context; Christian Darles, Derniers resultats, nouvelles datations et nouvelles donnees sur les fortifications de Shabwa (Hadramawt); Eivind Heldaas Seland, The Indian ships at Moscha and the Indo-Arabian trading circuit; Fabio Cavulli & Simona Scaruffi, Stone vessels from KHB-1, Ja'lan region, Sultanate of Oman (poster); Francesco G. Fedele, Wadi al-Tayyilah 3, a Neolithic and Pre-Neolithic occupation on the eastern Yemen Plateau, and its archaeofaunal information; Ghanim Wahida, Walid Yasin al-Tikriti & Mark Beech, Barakah: a Middle Palaeolithic site in Abu Dhabi Emirate; Jeffrey I. Rose & Geoff N. Bailey, Defining the Palaeolithic of Arabia? Notes on the Roundtable Discussion; Jeffrey I. Rose, Introduction: special session to define the Palaeolithic of Arabia; Julie Scott-Jackson, William Scott-Jackson, Jeffrey Rose & Sabah Jasim, Investigating Upper Pleistocene stone tools from Sharjah, UAE: Interim report; Krista Lewis & Lamya Khalidi, From prehistoric landscapes to urban sprawl: the Masn'at Maryah region of highland Yemen; Michael J. Harrower, Mapping and dating incipient irrigation in Wadi Sana, Hadramawt (Yemen); Mikhail Rodionov, The jinn in Hadramawt society in the last century; Mohammed A.R. al-Thenayian, The Red Sea Tihami coastal ports in Saudi Arabia; Mohammed Maraqten, Women's inscriptions recently discovered by the AFSM at the Awam temple/Mahram Bilqis in Marib, Yemen; Nasser Said al-Jahwari & Derek Kennet, A field methodology for the quantification of ancient settlement in an Arabian context; Remy Crassard, The "Wa'shah method": an original laminar debitage from Hadramawt, Yemen; Saad bin Abdulaziz al-Rashid, Sadd al-Khanaq: an early Umayyad dam near Medina, Saudi Arabia; Ueli Brunner, Ancient irrigation in Wadi Jirdan; Vincent Charpentier & Sophie Mery, A Neolithic settlement near the Strait of Hormuz: Akab Island, United Arab Emirates; Vincent Charpentier, Hunter-gatherers of the "empty quarter of the early Holocene" to the last Neolithic societies: chronology of the late prehistory of south-eastern Arabia (8000-3100 BC); Yahya Asiri, Relative clauses in the dialect of Rijal Alma' (south-west Saudi Arabia); Yosef Tobi, Salom (Salim) al-Sabazi's (seventeenth-century) poem of the debate between coffee and qat; Zaydoon Zaid & Mohammed Maraqten, The Peristyle Hall: remarks on the history of construction based on recent archaeological and epigraphic evidence of the AFSM expedition to the Awam temple in Marib, Yemen

These papers, from a 2008 conference at the British Museum, explore cultural traditions related to death and burial across the Arabian Peninsula from prehistory to modern times. Major themes include: specific local and regional burial traditions of ancient Arabia and adjacent regions; implications of burial data for aspects of contemporaneous living societies; beliefs surrounding death and the transition to the afterlife; landscapes of death and burial; burial and pilgrimage; recent and contemporary ideas and practices relating to death and burial.

Contents: 1) Coastal prehistory in the southern Red Sea Basin, underwater archaeology, and the Farasan Islands (Geoff Bailey, Abdullah AlSharekh, Nic Flemming, Kurt Lambeck, Garry Momber, Anthony Sinclair & Claudio Vita-Finzi); 2) Chronologie et evolution de l'architecture a Makaynun: la formation d'un centre urbain a l'epoque sudarabique dans le Hadramawt (A. Benoist, O. Lavigne, M. Mouton & J. Schiettecatte); 3) A preliminary study on the materials employed in ancient Yemeni mummification and burial practices (summary) (Stephen A. Buckley, Joann Fletcher, Khalid Al-Thour, Mohammed Basalama & Don R. Brothwell); 4) From Safer to Balhaf: rescue excavations along the Yemen LNG pipeline route (Remy Crassard & Holger Hitgen); 5) Pastoral nomadic communities of the Holocene climatic optimum: excavation and research at Kharimat Khor al-Manahil and Khor al-Manahil in the Rub al-Khali, Abu Dhabi (Richard Cuttler, Mark Beech, Heiko Kallweit, Anja Zander & Walid Yasin Al-Tikriti); 6) Flip the coin. Preliminary results of compositional EDX analyses on south-east Arabian coins from ed-Dur (Umm al-Qaiwain, UAE) (Parsival Delrue); 7) Spreading the Neolithic over the Arabian Peninsula (Philipp Drechsler); 8) Water and waste in mediaeval Zabid, Yemen (Ingrid Hehmeyer); 9) Tribal links between the Arabian Peninsula and the Middle Euphrates at the beginning of the second millennium BC (Christine Kepinski); 10) Rare photographs from the 1930s and 1940s by Yihye Haybi, a Yemenite Jew from Sana: historical reality and ethnographic deductions (Ester Muchawsky-Schnapper); 11) Stargazing in traditional water management: a case study in northern Oman (Harriet Nash); 12) Al Qisha: archaeological investigations at an Islamic period Yemeni village (Audrey Peli & Florian Tereygeol, Al-Radrad (al-Jabali): a Yemeni silver mine, first results of the French mission (2006) (Lynne S. Newton); 13) A biographical sketch of Britain's first Sabaeologist: Colonel W.F. Prideaux, CSI (Carl Phillips & St J. Simpson); 14) The Arabian Corridor Migration Model: archaeological evidence for hominin dispersals into Oman during the Middle and Upper Pleistocene (Jeffrey Rose); 15) Ceramic production in mediaeval Yemen: the Yadgat kiln site (Axelle Rougeulle); 16) The word slm/snm and some words for "statue, idol" in Arabian and other Semitic languages (Fiorella Scagliarini); 16) "Transformation processes in oasis settlements in Oman" 2005 archaeological survey at the oasis of Nizwa: a preliminary report (Juergen Schreiber); 17) Middle Palaeolithic - or what? New sites in Sharjah, UAE (Julie Scott-Jackson, William Scott-Jackson & Sabah Jasim); 18) Rites and funerary practices at Rawk during the fourth millennium BC (Wadi 'Idim, Yemen) (T. Steimer-Herbet, J-F. Saliege, T. Sagory, O. Lavigne & A. as-Saqqaf, in collaboration with M. Mashkour & H. Guy); 19) The sources on the Fitna of Masud b. Amr al-Azdi and their uses for Basran tribal history (Brian Ulrich); 20) The beads of ed-Dur (Umm al-Qaiwain, UAE) (An De Waele); 21) Aspects of recent archaeological work at al-Balid (Iafar), Sultanate of Oman (Juris Zarins); 22) Towards a new theory: the state of Bani Mahdi, the fourth imamate in Yemen (Ahmad b. Umar al-Zaylai).