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ArchaeoHugh t1_jd0gx1m wrote

Hi, I am one of the co-authors of the piece. Happy to answer any questions.

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kw0711 t1_jd10xeo wrote

How did you find this area? Were you accompanied by someone from Saudi during the project?

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ArchaeoHugh t1_jd15rb5 wrote

Our project performed remote sensing(satellite imagery survey) and helicopter aerial photography of thousands of sites in the region. The site we excavated was then visited on the ground by 4x4 and subsequently selected to be excavated.

We have had a lot of Saudi students be mentored by us during our seasons. The article also was co-written by an academic at a local University.

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maybesbabies t1_jd1j4wm wrote

Hi there, would it seem plausible that the remains being just skull remnants would imply a sort of slaughterhouse? With how prolific they are, and there being a Green Arabia at the time that could support large herds/flocks, I'm curious as to what they would have done with the rest of the remains, if none were recovered on sites. Was there somewhere else they brought the remains, or were the skulls brought there? These almost seem like pens and sluices at large slaughterhouses.

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ArchaeoHugh t1_jd1lf2u wrote

They did slaughter them, just not inside the structure. Where exactly, we aren't sure. We find cut marks on a number of the horns/teeth, so we can see evidence of butchering. But the non-cranial parts of the body haven't been found and were presumably part of a feast somewhere else. Some of the horns we have found appear like they may have been 'treated' as a way to remove the keratin horn sheath from the bone core. So that could indicate they have come from further away and the horn core was removed in order to be transpored.

They definitely had large herds, we can tell that from the rock art and the fact that they are sacrificing bulls that are more mature.

So over the course of the next 2 years, we are going to excavation a mustatil that is in close association with a nearby Neolithic settlement. The idea being to see whether the animal remains in the mustatil match those in the houses.

Important to state, we have identified 1600 mustatil and have excavated 5. So still a LOT more research to go.

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maybesbabies t1_jd1lztk wrote

And I'm sorry, one more question if I may. Does this in some way imply large scale processing? If the horns had been treated, perhaps they were used in another application, these were brought here for some other application, the meat was used elsewhere, etc. Would this imply a larger population using the end products of these sacrifices then, like a sort of religious factory work? I'm of limited understanding, but weren't there many bull cults/horned cults in the region at the time?

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ArchaeoHugh t1_jd2cawi wrote

Yep, cattle cults are common around the world. You can see them in places like Yemen or the corbeilles in Saharan Africa. All I can say is we know one of the horns appears to have burning inside- almost like it was a torch. But we also find little hearths inside the mustatil, so that could be why. Unfortunately, we can’t answer the question as to whether the horns were used elsewhere first. I’d doubt it but you can’t discount it. We just gotta dig more!!!

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jahnatan t1_jd1vima wrote

hi, thanks for the open questions :)

I'm not sure if I follow how/why the sites were dated 7,000 years old. what was the technique to determine the dating ?

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ArchaeoHugh t1_jd2d0nh wrote

So we have performed Carbon 14 testing on the animal remains and charcoal present inside. They all came back around 5300–4900 BCE- so roughly 7000 years ago. We have also done a technique called OSL- which is where you can test the last time a grain of sand saw sunlight. So you get sediment from under the structure, that was trapped when it was built- and determine the age pretty accurately.

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majestic_failure t1_jd2aslo wrote

Do you think there will ever come a point when we stop finding big deal structures like this? Like there can only be a finite number of them to find.

Also, what was a discovery that made you really change your view of history in some way?

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ArchaeoHugh t1_jd2cu1g wrote

So these structures wee first identified in the 70s. They weren’t studied until 2008 but that was just people taking photos. The first one was excavated in 2018. It’s a big world. There is a lot out there that is still to be found.

I actually think the mustatil have changed my view of world archaeology. These are 7000 years old. They cover an area of 350,000 square kilometres(at present). Some are made of over 12,000 tonnes of stone. This suggests a Neolithic period that is so much more complex than I ever imagined. Shared culture, language, and more over such a massive area. Blows my mind.

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PinguinBen t1_jd2lkxg wrote

Is it possible they were just shepherds and the mustatils the pen’s where they would keep their animals safe and together. Of course sacrifices will have been made to some gods. What other indications are found to suggest these were used for a gathering of a religious nature?

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ArchaeoHugh t1_jd4l0wf wrote

This is the most common suggestion we get. Definitely not pens. The long walls are often not high. Some mustatil have gaps in the walls. Others run up the side of volcanos or steep hill. The entrance into the structures are tiny, most people would need to walk through sideways. Basically, we are positive that they couldn’t hold animals. We also have animal pens from later periods(and perhaps some now from same time) and they are very different. We have excavated 5 mustatil now, of a few different types. Other teams in the region have collectively excavated 4 and we compare results. We have also visited or photographed hundreds more. So we can be really certain about the ritual function. But you are right- the people who made these were shepherds. Moving around the area to take advantage of available grasslands etc. very similar to some of the Bedouin still today. Thanks for the question.

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