The archaeological site of Bat in its environment.
Résumé
Decades of archaeological research in southeastern Arabia (Oman and the UAE) have provided a good
understanding of the evolution of human societies in this arid region, with the transition from mobile
pastoralism to settled agricultural villages occurring at the start of the Hafit period (ca. 3100e2700 BCE).
The delayed adoption of farming, ceramics, mudbrick architecture, metallurgy, and other technologies
until the start of the 3rd millennium BCE has been a particularly salient feature of this region relative to
its neighbours in Mesopotamia, southern Iran, and northwestern South Asia. However, recent geo-
archaeological research at the World Heritage Site of Bat, situated within the Wadi Sharsah valley in
northwest Oman, has provided evidence of irrigation practices that have been dated to the early-mid 4th
millennium BCE. While direct evidence of farming from this early period remains elusive, the presence of
irrigated fields at this time raises new questions about the supposedly mobile pastoralist groups of the
Arabian Neolithic and the beginning of farming practices in the region.