Thoughts on nomadism in Middle Holocene Oman

In the study of the Arabian Middle Holocene, some of the least widely understood topics are those of nomadism, subsistence strategy and mobility. Until now, various scholars operating in the area have proposed different models, particularly on the basis of faunal analysis and territory evaluations.The focus of this paper will be to reconsider this debate in light of studies carried out in the Ja’lan region in the Sultanate of Oman, where until 1985 the Joint Hadd Project has been conducting archaeological research. Excavated deposits and survey results provide the archaeological basis and are compared with studies on climate, territory, nature and culture. Four different hypotheses for the fourth-millennium Ja’lan communities are proposed and, comparing the different scales of movement with both the territory and resources, the more suitable is concluded to be a micro-regional nomadism model. According to this model, which is well supported by the ethnographical evidence, human groups were moving seasonally from the coast to the mountains, scouring the widyan route. A dearth of archaeological data from the internal area, due to a more widespread and less intense occupation, relatively poor preservation and a lack of proper archaeological survey, emphasise the limits and provide the stimulus for further research.