Page 46 - UAE Truncal States_Neat
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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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