Summary

The Arabian Peninsula, situated between Africa and Eurasia, is an important yet understudied region for understanding hominin evolution across the continents. With an interior dominated by hyper-arid sand seas (or ergs), it’s hard to imagine early humans and non-desert adapted animals occupying this harsh landscape. However, we now know that this was not always the case. Recent research has shown that over the past million years—namely during interglacials—the deserts that characterize the Arabian interior were periodically transformed in open grasslands with large, permanent lakes and rivers. In this talk, I focus on fossil record of the Arabian Peninsula—covering the last half a million years—and discuss what it can tell us about past ecologies and human-animal-environment interactions. I suggest that at times in the past, conditions in the Arabian interior were comparable to modern-day African savannas, and that these conditions repeatedly permitted hominins and animals such as elephants and hippos to disperse into and occupy the peninsula. I’ll cover recent major archaeological and palaeontological findings, highlighting the importance of Arabia in the study of human prehistory and evolution.

Speaker biography

Mathew Stewart received a BA (Hons) in Biological Sciences from the University of Wollongong and his PhD in the same discipline from the University of New South Wales. He now holds a postdoctoral position at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology, Germany, as part of the Extreme Events Research Group. Mathew’s research focuses on using the fossil record to inform on human, animal, and environmental interactions. Working primarily in the Arabian Peninsula, Mathew uses a combination of lab and field work to inform on the nature and timing of past human and animal dispersals into this important yet understudied part of the world.