BP helps studies of UAE heritage
The help is in the form of assistance for the Abu Dhabi Islands Archaeological Survey, ADIAS, in its research into two distinct aspects of Abu Dhabi's heritage - research into the geology of the island of Balghelam, north-east of Abu Dhabi, and a study programme on Neolithic (Late Stone Age) flint tools from the western island of Dalma.
Archaeological excavations on Balghelam, carried out with the permission of the island's owner, Presidential Court Chamberlain Sheikh Surour bin Mohammed Al Nahyan, have shown that the island was occupied as much as four thousand years ago, perhaps by traders passing down the Gulf from Bahrain. Balghelam is close inshore, but, like many of Abu Dhabi's islands, is divided from the mainland by a shallow channel.
Earlier this year, two geologists undertaking research for ADIAS collected rock samples from the island, which are now to be dated at Britain's Southampton University. This will help scientists to date the evolution of the shorelines of the islands and of nearby coastal areas of Abu Dhabi over the past few thousand years, adding valuable data to knowledge of the pattern of human settlement in the area. The results from the analysis of the rock samples will be included in a publication being prepared by ADIAS on the archaeology of Balghelam.
Other excavations by ADIAS on the western island of Dalma have identified one of the earliest human settlements known in the United Arab Emirates.
It was occupied between 6500 - 7500 years ago, or the Neolithic period.
The inhabitants of the Dalma site were trading by sea with Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq), and depended for their food on shellfish, fish, turtles and dugongs, as well as on domestic animals like sheep and goats. In their hunting and fishing, and in processing their food, they depended on flint (stone) tools, and several thousand tools and other flint fragments have been recovered from the site.
ADIAS is now preparing a major publication on the Dalma site, which will include cataloguing and analysis of the stone tools. This work is being carried out by ADIAS associate, Dr Heiko Kallweit, a leading expert on Arabian stone tools from the Neolithic period, who is based in Freiburg, Germany.
BP are helping ADIAS carry out these two important pieces of research by arranging for the shipping of the rock samples to Britain and the Neolithic stone tools to Germany.
"We are delighted to be able to help ADIAS with their research," says David Dalton, General Manager of BP Abu Dhabi. "BP has a history of nearly 70 years of involvement with Abu Dhabi, and has supported scientific research here for decades. Bodies like ADIAS are making important contributions to knowledge of the geology and heritage of the United Arab Emirates, and BP is pleased to be able to support their efforts." WAM/PH-AZ 13 50 CCCCQQE