Page 229 - Life & Land Use on the Bahrain Islands (Curtis E Larsen)

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growth rate. Tliis may signify that the population of the islands had declined from
its "previous” peak and was maintained at a lower level of growth and concomitant
land use.
This trend changed in the medieval period. By the fourteenth century,
the land area in use increased to equal that of the the Barbar n phase. It also
supported a similar population (ca. 20,000 persons). As in Barbar II times, Bahrain
was again involved in a major maritime trade network and was once more a trading
center.
Bahrain went through a change in political orientation, beginning in the
early twelfth century, when it became linked to the Persian coast. Tribute was
demanded alternately by the islands of Qais, Qishm, and the kingdom of Hormuz.
Tliis change in orientation was clearly to a maritime exchange network. Manama
served as an entrepot and a port of entry for the Arabian coast but was
administered by distant rulers. Between the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries
Bahrain was a part of a maritime trade network centered at Hormuz. This network
linked Bahrain with the gulf and the Far East, creating markets for pearls as luxury
goods and dates as a durable agricultural export.
Like the Barbar period, external trade stimulated a period of renewed
agricultural activity and population growth. The former was aided by the onset of
increased winter rainfall, which occurred at about the same period. Once again,
outside stimuli had underwritten the ruling classes of the islands and created
internal demands for skilled workers and other nonagricultural classes within the
population. Increased nonagricultural labor requirements for food demanded an
increase in agricultural production and gave rise to a concomitant increase in the
area of agricultural land. It is doubtful whether Bahrain was able to meet these
needs without aid of imported foods.
Where Bahrain in the Barbar II phase seems to have reached an
environmental and economic limit that led to a decrease in population by possible
emigration, a similar parallel did not take place during medieval times. For
example, the majority of irrigation systems evident in Figure 15 are often
associated with medieval ceramics. TTie qanats, too, seem to have been in common