Archaeobotanical Evidence for Early Date Consumption in the Arabian Gulf

Dr. Mark J. Beech
Department of Archaeology, University of York, The King's Manor, York YO1 7EP, U.K. (E-mail: mjb117@york.ac.uk)

Paper to be presented at the International Date Palm Forum, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates - 15-17 September 2002.

The conference is being organised by the Emirates Center for Strategic Studies and Research, on behalf of the Minister of Information and Culture. For more details about this conference contact: Dr. Ali Al-Arai (Deputy Director for Community Services), email: ecssrconf@ecssr.ac.ae.

ABSTRACT

The exciting discovery of 7000 year old carbonized date stones on Dalma island in Abu Dhabi emirate in the United Arab Emirates has made an important contribution to the dating of early date consumption in the Middle East. Several date stone impressions were also discovered within burnt mud brick fragments at the site. Recent archaeological excavations carried out in Kuwait on a similar age site have uncovered traces of mineralised date stones. This paper reviews all these findings and discusses their relevance to our understanding of the early exploitation of the date palm in the Arabian Gulf.
 

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