Marawah is one of a group of low islands in the Khor al-Bazm channel in the South Arabian Gulf, around 100 km west of Abu Dhabi. It is formed of Pleistocene limestone platforms linked by more recent sand and beach deposits and salt flats. Its sheltered shorelines and bays support mangrove trees, one of the few areas in the UAE where the species is spreading naturally. It is a mixed habitat with a range of flora and fauna and is an internationally important site for migratory water birds, notably great knot, which breed only in far eastern Siberia and whose world population winters almost exclusively in Australasia. The island is home to seasonal fishermen and has yielded evidence of human occupation from many periods stretching back into the distant past. The oldest known human-made structures in the Gulf, as well as the UAE’s earliest known human remains, have shed light on the lifestyle of its ancient inhabitants.
Much of the archaeological work has been centred on and near the spectacular, rocky limestone headland of Jebel Bal Sharayis, where the major sites date from the Late Stone Age, some 7,500 years ago (5,500 BC to 4,000 BC), Bronze Age (c. 3,150 – 1,200 BC), and the early Islamic period (7th-9th Centuries AD).
A range of sites, including buildings, hearths, burials and water catchment systems, with associated material, have been revealed in a series of important, scientific excavations that began in the early 1990s, on the western edge of the island’s central rocky plateau, the more recent work clarifying and expanding on previous discoveries and their interpretation. Remains, initially thought to be pre-Islamic burial mounds and subsequently identified as a religious complex, are now known to be the foundations of three dwellings from the Neolithic Period (Late Stone Age). At some 7,500 years old, these remains predate even the earliest Egyptian pharaohs. They are the best and most complete domestic structures from the Gulf of this period. The fully excavated house has walls standing almost a metre high and half a metre thick, of ‘double skin’ construction in which the inner and outer faces are of large stones with a core of smaller material. This is the first locally known example of ‘double skin’ from this period and the house consisted of at least four rooms. The skeleton of a man, aged between 20 and 40 years - the UAE’s oldest known inhabitant to date - was found on a stone platform in one of the rooms. He was laid to rest on his left side, in a foetal position, with his head facing north-east.
Marawah has produced substantial quantities of stone tools, mostly of flint with many arrowheads and spearheads, skilfully pressure-worked on both surfaces in a manner typical of the local Arabian Neolithic manufacturing tradition. The presence of cores, waste flakes and hammer-stones indicate that at least some of the tools were made on the island. The discovery of more than one hundred beads and two beautiful pearl oyster shell buttons show that these early inhabitants were interested in personal ornaments. It is likely that the southern Gulf pearl trade began at about this time.
The islanders appear to have lived in a settled society as the house remains testify, living off a mixed diet economy. The bone evidence suggests that fishing for such species as dolphin, dugong, turtle and shellfish was obviously an important activity. Sheep and goats are known to have been kept and the arrowheads and spearheads suggest that the meat supply was supplemented with the hunting of fowl and wild animals, particularly gazelle. Significantly, the remains of a stone pestle at the fully excavated house suggest the grinding of raw food substances.
Some Marawah island sites of Neolithic date (Late Stone Age) have produced fragments of Ubaid pottery, of southern Mesopotamian (Iraq) manufacture, indicating the inhabitants’ involvement in maritime trade at this early date.
Marawah Island is an immensely important archaeological resource in the UAE’s heritage. Overall, its sites represent the most complete sequence of human occupation in the United Arab Emirates, with all periods from the Late Stone Age until recent times being represented, and further excavation is likely to continue revealing detailed aspects of life during the Late Stone Age and subsequent periods in the South Arabian Gulf.