Page 67 - Life & Land Use on the Bahrain Islands (Curtis E Larsen)

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with numerous C14 dates available from his excavations (Tosi 1976). It would be
advantageous to have well-dated stratigraphy from the Trucial Coast and Oman to
aid in correlation; however, this information is not yet at hand. For the interim,
the archeological parallels shown here rely heavily on work by Frifelt (1975a,b) and
are based on grave goods.

'The Late Tliird Millennium Population

Even with uncertainties, the general outline of the pertinent cultural processes can
be suggested from the existing archeological and historical data. Hie relatively
complete ceramic record presented in Appendix I for the Barbar and pre-Barbar
levels, for example, shows that the greatest number of individual occupation sites
in this time range belong to the latest phase, Barbar n (2000-1800 B.C.). An
extensive area of Bahrain shows evidence for such Barbar n sites. A variety of
these sites is located along the north coast of the island, but the southern extent of
the Barbar n occupation is of greater interest. Evidence for this phase is also
found as a component at a variety of later sites and at a few significantly located
single component sites south of Zellaq. Barbar II sites form an array of past
settlement sites along the west coastal plain of the island. These sites can be
found across the full width of the coastal plain south of Zellaq, in an area where
agriculture is no longer practiced because of the lack of water. Thus, the
southernmost Barbar n occupation sites are found a full five kilometers south of
the nearest modern settlement.
The tomb fields dated to the Barbar period provide another clue to
Bahrain's past. These tombs occupy the barren limestone and dolomite dipslopes of
the Alat and Khobar formations. On the north coast, tombs are less distinct
because of constant reuse of grave areas by later populations. The best example of
this type of burial is found in the al-Hajjar grave field located between the Qalat
al-Bahrain and the Barbar Temple (Tarawneh n.d., Rice 1976). Extensive Barbar
period tomb fields are found as discrete entities associated with regions of
settlement (fig. 7 and 11). McNicoll and Roaf (n.d.) have noted that in all cases
observed by the British Expedition, tombs were built directly on a limestone
surface. As they suggest, this may have been a method of conserving scarce arable