Page 29 - Life & Land Use on the Bahrain Islands (Curtis E Larsen)

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Bahrain's ecological boundaries are less complex than the major river
valleys of Iraq. A population living on an island has a finite area within which to
develop a subsistence system. Thus, one can theorize physical limits to population
growth on the island as well as suggest the development of the social organization
necessary to derive optimum support from the existing land area. At the same
time, there is ample historical evidence to identify Bahrain as an exchange point in
a maritime trade network centered in the gulf. Although located in an arid zone,
Bahrain and the adjacent Arabian coast have also been historically identified with a
dependable supply of artesian water. Finally, Bahrain has been sufficiently
explored archeologically to identify its past relationships with other parts of the
gulf.
The remaining problems require synthesis of both new and existing data to
provide reconstructions of environment, technology, and population as potential
indicators of ongoing cultural changes. As a datum it is first necessary to isolate
the combined variables most effective in varying land use. The most expeditious
way to accomplish this Is with an assessment of the modern population and its
recognized land use problems. A second need is an archeological chronology for
Bahrain to build a framework for the identification of past settlement and land use
patterns. The extant historical sources need be canvassed to reconstruct past
ecological and economic systems. Finally, a geo morphological analysis must be
performed to build a record of environmental processes acting upon the landscape
and to add a geological framework for observed land use and settlement
arrangements. The result provides a geoarcheological appraisal of an insular
cultural subsystem that contributes to the eventual analysis of the Persian-Arabian
Gulf region as a coherent system of cultural and natural processual interactions.