TY - JOUR
T1 - Cult, herding, and ‘pilgrimage’ in the Late Neolithic of north-west Arabia
T2 - Excavations at a mustatil east of AlUla
AU - Kennedy, Melissa
AU - Strolin, Laura
AU - McMahon, Jane
AU - Franklin, Daniel
AU - Flavel, Ambika
AU - Noble, Jacqueline
AU - Swift, Lauren
AU - Nassr, Ahmed
AU - Fallon, Stewart
AU - Thomas, Hugh
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
Copyright: © 2023 Kennedy et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
PY - 2023/3
Y1 - 2023/3
N2 - Since the 1970s, monumental stone structures now called mustatil have been documented across Saudi Arabia. However, it was not until 2017 that the first intensive and systematic study of this structure type was undertaken, although this study could not determine the precise function of these features. Recent excavations in AlUla have now determined that these structures fulfilled a ritual purpose, with specifically selected elements of both wild and domestic taxa deposited around a betyl. This paper outlines the results of the University of Western Australia’s work at site IDIHA-0008222, a 140 m long mustatil (IDIHA-F-0011081), located 55 km east of AlUla. Work at this site sheds new and important light on the cult, herding and ‘pilgrimage’ in the Late Neolithic of north-west Arabia, with the site revealing one of the earliest chronometrically dated betyls in the Arabian Peninsula and some of the earliest evidence for domestic cattle in northern Arabia.
AB - Since the 1970s, monumental stone structures now called mustatil have been documented across Saudi Arabia. However, it was not until 2017 that the first intensive and systematic study of this structure type was undertaken, although this study could not determine the precise function of these features. Recent excavations in AlUla have now determined that these structures fulfilled a ritual purpose, with specifically selected elements of both wild and domestic taxa deposited around a betyl. This paper outlines the results of the University of Western Australia’s work at site IDIHA-0008222, a 140 m long mustatil (IDIHA-F-0011081), located 55 km east of AlUla. Work at this site sheds new and important light on the cult, herding and ‘pilgrimage’ in the Late Neolithic of north-west Arabia, with the site revealing one of the earliest chronometrically dated betyls in the Arabian Peninsula and some of the earliest evidence for domestic cattle in northern Arabia.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85150291116&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1371/journal.pone.0281904
DO - 10.1371/journal.pone.0281904
M3 - Article
C2 - 36920897
AN - SCOPUS:85150291116
SN - 1932-6203
VL - 18
JO - PLoS One
JF - PLoS One
IS - 3 March
M1 - e0281904
ER -