Sharjah-Germany's Tubingen Archaeological Project announce new findings at Faya
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WAM SHARJAH: The Joint Sharjah-Germany's Tubingen Archaeological Project has announced new important findings from an eight year archaeological excavation at Jebel Faya, an inland desert site in Sharjah, UAE.
The new findings reveal that modern humans migrated out of Africa much earlier than previously thought, helped by global fluctuations in sea-level and climate change in the Arabian Peninsula. These findings will stimulate a re-evaluation of the means by which modern humans became a global species, according to Dr Sabah Jasim, head of the local archeological mission at Directorate of Antiquities, Department of Culture and Information, Government of Sharjah in statements at a joint press conference with the German archeological team led by Hans-Peter Uerpmann of the Institute for Scientific Archaeology, Eberhard-Karls-University Tubingen.
The new findings challenge the existing view that modern humans left Africa around 70,000 years ago. Their data reveal that humans left Africa at least 50,000 years earlier than previously suggested and were, in fact, present in eastern Arabia as early as 125,000 years ago. These anatomically modern' humans had evolved in Africa about 200,000 years ago and subsequently populated the rest of the world, according to a joint press release.
The new data gathered by an international team from stone tools, such as scrapers, blades and axes, reveal that humans left Africa at least 50,000 years earlier than previously suggested and were, in fact, present in eastern Arabia as early as 125,000 years ago, according to Jasim.
The findings include Palaeolithic stone tools which were analyzed by Professor Anthony Marks and Dr Vitaly Usik who accordingly discovered that they were technologically similar to tools produced by early modern humans in east Africa, but very different from those produced farther north in Arabia, in the Levant and the mountains of Iran. This suggested that early modern humans migrated into Arabia directly from Africa and not via the Nile Valley and the Near East as is usually suggested.
The project, generously funded by His Highness Dr Sheikh Sultan bin Mohammed Al Qasimi, UAE Supreme Council member and ruler of Sharjah, led by Professor Uerpmann reached Palaeolithic levels in 2006.
Professor Anthony Marks and Dr Vitaly Usik analyzed the Palaeolithic stone tools found at the site and discovered that they were technologically similar to tools produced by early modern humans in east Africa, but very different from those produced farther north in Arabia, in the Levant and the mountains of Iran. This suggested that early modern humans migrated into Arabia directly from Africa and not via the Nile Valley and the Near East as is usually suggested.
Dr Armitage from Royal Holloway, University of London, calculated the age of the stone tools found at Jebel Faya using a technique called luminescence dating. His work revealed that modern humans were at Jebel Faya by around 125,000 years ago, immediately after the period in which the Bab al-Mandab seaway and Nejd Plateau were passable.
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