Page 49 - Life & Land Use on the Bahrain Islands (Curtis E Larsen)

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all, there now exists a record of approximately 225 separate occupation sites on
the Bahrain Islands for which a composite pottery record can be compiled. Figure
7 shows the locations of the total number of sites recorded through 1976, and a list
of sites is presented in Appendix n.
The excavations at Qala’at al-Bahrain by the Danish Expedition provided
the best chronological definition of archeological materials. The present research
continues to be keyed to this original work reported by Glob and Bibby in the
Danish journal Kuml between 1953 and 1970. A detailed analysis of the material
remains from this site has not yet been published, but an analysis of a small portion
of the total ceramic collection is presented in Appendix I and provides temporal
control for a spatial overview of Bahrain’s archeological sites.
The most reliable, excavated, early site on Bahrain is in the
3900-3500 B.C. range (Roaf 1976). For stratified archeological materials prior to
this time, attention must be turned to the Saudi Arabian coast where recent
excavations have been carried out by Masry (1974) and C. Piesinger (1983) and
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surface survey has been done by Adams et al. (1977). MasryTs C dated excavations
at fAin Qannas, north of Hofuf, extend the temporally-controlled archeology of the
region to approximately 5000 B.C. Thus, there is sufficient regional knowledge to
study changing patterns of land use during the Middle and Late Holocene.
Archeological and historical data must be synthesized before the
identification of surface sites and the explanation of land-use patterns can begin
for Bahrain. Unlike the earlier spatial studies by Adams (1965) in Iraq, where
"index artifacts” could be chosen from among many known excavations, diagnostic
forms for the gulf region must first be defined. Collections from three separate
Danish excavations were studied to provide this definition. Two of these
excavations were located at the major stratified site, Qalafat al-Bahrain (site 112).
A third was an Early Islamic well fill from the temple site at Barbar (site 109). Site
112 (Danish no. 520), is Bibby’s north wall excavation (Bibby, 1969, 1971) and his best
example of Early Dilmun, ca. 2500-1750 B.C. Site 110 (Danish no. 518) is a deep
sounding through the floor of the Portuguese fort at Qala’at al-Bahrain that
provides an almost continuous sequence from ca. 1000 B.C. to the Late Islamic