Page 46 - UAE Truncal States

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The Tribal Structure of Society

in Oman.2 It is still an open question whether these early inhabitants
vanished from the area, whether they were overcome by subsequent
invaders, or whether a part of the present population can be traced
back to them. This is not very relevant to a study of the contemporary
inhabitants, simply because it is of no importance whatsoever for
their own concept of the society to which they belong.
Reports of dried-up river beds in the interior,3 traces of ancient
now unusable caravan routes as well as remains of settlements in
waterless areas,4 and some geological evidence have given weight to
the theory that there might have been a gradual climatic change
within historical times.5
The account of successive waves of population migrations and of
smaller groups of invaders suggest that it might not have been quite
so forbidding an adventure to move large numbers of people and
their animals across some of the now almost waterless tracts. Thus
the geographical setting of south-eastern Arabia might not have
always afforded the same splendid isolation from the rest of the
Arabian Peninsula as it has done for the last few centuries. With the
question of the extent and impact of a possible climatic change still
very much open, the fact remains that south-eastern Arabia wit­
nessed several migrations from the West and North, as a result of
which the population of the whole area is predominantly of Arab 1;
stock.
Semitic peoples may have moved to this region as early as two
thousand years before Christ. The biblical sources, together with
early South Arabian written material and with archaeological and ;
anthropological evidence, do not seem to be enough to unite the
differing views of the experts on the question of the population
distribution in the Arabian Peninsula at that time.6 In general such
informed speculations do point to close links between various south­
west Arabian kingdoms and Greater Oman.7 The names of tribes and
places in the south-east are traced by some scholars to the names of
legendary tribes, ancestors and princes of the south-western corner
of the Peninsula.8
The population of neighbouring inner Oman was already seden­ ‘
tary during the periods of Persian domination of the area. In
Achaemenid (700-330 BC) and Sassanid (226-651 AD) times the land
under cultivation reached a maximum extent due to the construction
of irrigation channels on the pattern of the Persian qanat.9 Where
such irrigation was possible, settlements developed. These were
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