Page 51 - Life & Land Use on the Bahrain Islands (Curtis E Larsen)

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period. The most notable gap is in the Early Islamic range, between the seventh
and ninth century A.D., but the sealed well filling at the Barbar Temple provides an
excellent example of Early Islamic materials. In addition, other known ceramic
parallels from Iraq and around the gulf provide further chronological criteria for
dating the surface and stratified archeological sites on Bahrain.

Prehistoric and Protohistoric Bahrain
Surface collections from Bahrainfs flint sites were first published by Glob (1954d),
who noted that many sites were present near the Jebel ad-Dukhan and along
suspected early beach ridges south of Zellaq. Two basic distinctions were made.
One group of sites contained large, deeply patinated bifacial scrapers and
retouched flakes. The other group contained finer tools such as awls, serrated
sickle blades, and tanged and barbed projectile points.
Later work by Kapel (1967) in Qatar provided a broader framework for
viewing east Arabian flint assemblages. In general, Kapel grouped flint surface
materials into four categories. Group A, consisting of scrapers and other related
tools, is considered to represent a Middle Paleolithic occupation on the Qatar
Peninsula. More recent studies in Qatar by Inizan (1978, 1980) show sites of this
group near Khor to be Neolithic. Although sites of this group were initially
claimed by Kapel to be associated with raised beaches 25 to 30 m above sea level
and dated to 39,800 B.P., Inizan’s work counters this assertion. Somewhat similar
assemblages and individual artifacts have also been found in both Bahrain (Glob
1954d) and Saudi Arabia (Bibby 1973, Masry 1974). Glob, for example, related the
Danish surface collections near Jebel ad-Dukhan to this ill-defined earlier period.
Kapel's second group or Group B is composed of an assemblage with
tanged, unifacially flaked, blade projectile points that superficially relate to
prepottery levels at Jericho (Kenyon 1970) and at Beidha (Mortensen 1970b). A
hearth in Qatar associated with this type of assemblage was dated by C14 to 7020
B.P. (Kapel 1967). This would place the east Arabian collections later than those in
the Levant, were this single date to be relied upon. Although Kapel did not