Settlement of Qatar
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Qatar has very little material that reviews the full settlement history of this particular small area. Instead, most of the literature that is readily available relates to Arabia as a region. Therefore, this particular webpage will review the settlement history of Arabia. If more specific information becomes available, I will revise this webpage.
Drechsler (2007, p.102) presents a review of prior research on the Neolithic period in Arabia. "At the onset of the Holocene around 8000 cal. B.C., there is evidence for the existence of human groups on the Arabian Peninsula, especially in environmentally favourable areas of the south.", While Qatar is not specifically mentioned, I speculate that the coastal setting provided marine resources for these early settlers. Dreschler (2007) then goes on to present the results of simulation of how early farmers in the area around modern-day Israel (called the Levant) could have spread southward into Arabia with more favorable wet climates in the middle of the Holocene. According to the article, “Ceremonial objects or household items?” two pieces of pottery were found, one on the East coast and one on the West coast, and from these artifacts they were able to realize the settlement of the people in the Mesopotamia region. On the West coastline, along with the pieces of Ubaid pottery, the archaeologists were able to find pieces of flint and other stone tools that correlate with the Gulf Coasts around Qatar. On the Eastern coast they were able to find a “scatter of flint artifacts” and well as “crushed pieces of marine snails.” In conclusion, from the artifacts found, it can be inferred that the people that settled here relied off of the marine species as a source of food (Drechsler, 2013). According to John Lockerbie, “by the mid eighteenth century, the main settlements in Qatar were those associated with two tribes, the Al Thani and the Al Khalifah.” The tribe Al Thani settled at Al Doha (Figure 1) and Al Wahrah, and controlled the eastern side of the peninsula. On the North-west side of Qatar, the Al Khalifah settles on Al Zubarah (Figure 2). “The Al Na’im were associated with the Al Khalifah (Lockerbie, 2014).” The Al Na’im stayed in Qatar during the winters but during the summers some moved to north of Bahrain and others moved near Al Doha. “In 1937, there was a split in the tribe, the Al Ramzan who had sided with the Al Thanis remained on the peninsula and the Al Jabr, who sided with the Al Khalifa of Bahrain in their disagreement over Al Zubarah – but lost, emigrated via Bahrain to Al Hasa, eventually returning to their traditional grounds in the north-west of Qatar where they moved around during the year (Lockerbie, 2014).” During the summers they stayed around their wells near the coast and, in winter, moved further inland to graze the animals (Lockerbie, 2014). The connection to this Fleeting World rests in the connection between Arabia and Mesopotamia. Mesopotamia is on the northern side of the Arabian Peninsula. Thus, it is possible that what happened in Mesopotamia influenced the area around Qatar. For example, the hunter-gatherers around 20,000 to 5000 years ago were likely also in southern Arabia. Drechsler (2007) modeled the movement of Mesopotamian people south into Arabia during the Neolithic period when grain crops were cultivated starting around 8000 BCE. The last connection between this Fleeting World and Qatar comes from the Abbasid empire, which did control this part of the world for several hundred years. Resources for this page: Picture: Figure 1, Early Settlement of Qatar Picture: Figure 2, Map of Qatar Christian, D. (2008). This Fleeting World: A short history of humanity. Great Barrington, Mass.: Berkshire Pub. Drechsler, P., Berthold, C., al-Naimi, F. A. and Eichmann, R. (2013), Ceremonial objects or household items? Non-destructive μ-XRD2 and μ-XRF studies on three Neolithic hematite axes from Qatar. Arabian Archaeology and Epigraphy, 24: 119–124. doi: 10.1111/aae.12029 Drechsler, P. Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies, Vol. 37, Papers from the fortieth meeting of the Seminar for Arabian Studies held in London, 27-29 July 2006 (2007), pp. 93-109 Lockerbie, J. (2014, January 1). The population of Qatar. Retrieved September 5, 2014, from http://catnaps.org/islamic/population.html |