Holocene vegetational development and the beginning of oasis cultivation in Tayma, North-Western Saudi Arabia: first results

• Autores: Michele Dinies, Reinder Neef, Lars Kuerschner
• Localización: Polen, ISSN 1135-8408, Nº. 21, 2011, págs. 9-14
• Idioma: inglés
• Títulos paralelos:
  • Desarrollo de la vegetación durante el Holoceno y el inicio del cultivo de oasis en Tayma, al noroeste de Arabia Saudí: primeros resultados
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• Resumen

  • Cores from a large palaeolake, botanical macroremains out of archaeological features and surveys of the actual vegetation in combination with pollen surface samples provide excellent records for the reconstruction of the Holocene development of vegetation, land use and oasis cultivation in the Tayma region in north-western Saudi-Arabia.

    The preliminary pollen data suggest a moderately denser vegetation cover during early and mid Holocene. However, fluctuating but high frequencies of desert vegetation throughout the sequence show the persistence of desert ecosystems in the Tayma region and confirm that stable agricultural practices always depended on irrigation. Vine pollen indicates a start of oasis cultivation at least at the beginning of the 3rd millennium BC. Whether the less pronounced, but perhaps economically significant change in vegetation during this period was the main trigger for oasis cultivation or only one among several reasons has to be decided after further investigations.