The evolution of Late Quaternary alluvial landscapes in northern Oman
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Oxford
Department Name: Geography - SoGE
Abstract
Rapid urban and industrial development is altering the landscape of Arabia at an alarming rate. However, these landscapes are archives of hundreds of thousands of years of environmental change, and provide an important framework for understanding the demographic variability of human populations in the distant past. Multi-proxy data from an extensive suite of river and lake deposits along the western Hajar Mountains can be used to develop a sensitive record of climatically-driven environmental change. The dispersals of prehistoric populations are fundamentally linked to the availability of freshwater resources within the Arabian Peninsula. In particular, the occupation of archaeological sites such as Jebel Faya (UAE), are seemingly synchronous with increased rainfall and the expansion of vegetation throughout the region. Despite the potential of palaeoenvironmental investigations in this region to advance knowledge of early human-environment interactions, to date there are only a few studies with good chronometric control. Therefore, building an advanced and securely dated framework of Arabian palaeohydrology from fan systems within the region has the potential to generate a high-resolution record of the water resources available to our ancestors, and the environmental pressures influencing their mobility. This record has huge educational value for regional museums and heritage organisations.
Research questions: The main aim of this project is to develop a framework of climatically driven landscape change from SE Arabia utilising a series of dated fluvial/alluvial sediment sequences situated along the western Hajar Mountains. The overarching research questions will be: 1. What is the nature and timing of drainage activation from the western Hajar region of SE Arabia? 2. How did the abiotic and biotic components of SE Arabian environments respond to these periods of drainage activation?
3. How do such changes correspond with wider regional and global climate variability?
4. What implications did these changes in water resource availability have for Early Homo sapiens and their demography throughout the Mid-Late Pleistocene?
5. How can these findings be used to improve presentation of the stories of pre-historic peoples in museums and heritage sites within the region?
Research questions: The main aim of this project is to develop a framework of climatically driven landscape change from SE Arabia utilising a series of dated fluvial/alluvial sediment sequences situated along the western Hajar Mountains. The overarching research questions will be: 1. What is the nature and timing of drainage activation from the western Hajar region of SE Arabia? 2. How did the abiotic and biotic components of SE Arabian environments respond to these periods of drainage activation?
3. How do such changes correspond with wider regional and global climate variability?
4. What implications did these changes in water resource availability have for Early Homo sapiens and their demography throughout the Mid-Late Pleistocene?
5. How can these findings be used to improve presentation of the stories of pre-historic peoples in museums and heritage sites within the region?
Planned Impact
1. Academic beneficiaries: The CDT will develop scientific and engineering excellence in the domain of cultural heritage scientific and engineering research and more fundamentally in the enabling domains of imaging and sensing, visualisation, modelling, computational analysis and digital technology. While the CDT focusses on the complex materials and environments of the arts, heritage and archaeology, it will be broadly influential due to the range of novel methods and approaches to be developed in collaboration with the Diamond Light Source and the National Physical Laboratory. The establishment of a student and alumni-managed 'Heritage Science Research Network', will enable CDT's cross-disciplinarity to bridge EPSRC subject boundaries impacting scholarly research in the arts and humanities and social sciences.
2. Heritage beneficiaries: The CDT will have a transformational effect on public heritage institutions by dovetailing 'Data creation', 'Data to knowledge' and 'Knowledge to enterprise' research strands. The resulting advances in understanding, interpretation, conservation, presentation, management, communication, visualisation of heritage, and improved visitor participation and engagement will lead to significantly improved public service and value creation in this sector. This will sustainably boost the cultural heritage tourism sector which requires significant heritage science capacity to maintain the UK's cultural assets, i.e. museum, library, archive and gallery collections and historic buildings. 15 globally leading heritage Partner institutions (both national and international) will contribute to dissemination through established and new heritage networks e.g. the EU Heritage Portal (http://www.heritageportal.eu/).
3. Industry, particularly three crucial sectors: (i) sensors and instrumentation, which underpin a wide range of industrial activity despite the small size (UK Sales £3Bn), and are a key enabling technology for successful economic growth: 70% of the revenues of FTSE 100 companies (sales of £120Bn) are in sectors that are highly dependent on instrumentation; (ii) creative industries, increasingly vital to the UK with 2M employees in creative jobs and the sector contributing £60Bn a year (7.3%) to the UK economy. Over the past decade, the creative sector has grown at twice the rate of the economy as a whole; (iii) heritage tourism sector contributing £7.4Bn p.a. to the UK economy and supporting 466,000 equivalent jobs. Without the CDT, this crucially important economy sector will experience an unsustainable loss of capacity. The impact will be achieved in collaboration with our Partners: Electronics, Sensors, Photonics KTN, TIGA and Qi3, a technology commercialisation, business development and knowledge transfer company.
4. Public: The intensive public engagement activities are built into CDT including dissemination and engagement events at heritage institutions, popular science conferences and fora, e.g. Cheltenham Science Festival, European Science Open Forum and British Science Festival, as well as events organised by the HEIs' Beacon projects (e.g. UCL Bright Club). Cross-cohort encouragement to engage in these events will realise the substantial potential for the CDT to popularise science and engineering. More widely, visitors and users of heritage will benefit from the development of new and more engaging presentation tools, and pervasive and mobile computing.
5. Policy: SEAHA will engage with policy makers, by contributing evidence to policies and research agendas (the PI is actively involved in the EU JPI Cultural Heritage and Global Change, in which she advised on the development of the EU Cultural Heritage Research Agenda endorsed on 22/03/2013) and develop policy briefings for governmental and parliamentary bodies. The CDT is also a strategically important development of the AHRC/EPSRC Science and Heritage Programme ensuring continued global UK leadership in the SEAHA domain.
2. Heritage beneficiaries: The CDT will have a transformational effect on public heritage institutions by dovetailing 'Data creation', 'Data to knowledge' and 'Knowledge to enterprise' research strands. The resulting advances in understanding, interpretation, conservation, presentation, management, communication, visualisation of heritage, and improved visitor participation and engagement will lead to significantly improved public service and value creation in this sector. This will sustainably boost the cultural heritage tourism sector which requires significant heritage science capacity to maintain the UK's cultural assets, i.e. museum, library, archive and gallery collections and historic buildings. 15 globally leading heritage Partner institutions (both national and international) will contribute to dissemination through established and new heritage networks e.g. the EU Heritage Portal (http://www.heritageportal.eu/).
3. Industry, particularly three crucial sectors: (i) sensors and instrumentation, which underpin a wide range of industrial activity despite the small size (UK Sales £3Bn), and are a key enabling technology for successful economic growth: 70% of the revenues of FTSE 100 companies (sales of £120Bn) are in sectors that are highly dependent on instrumentation; (ii) creative industries, increasingly vital to the UK with 2M employees in creative jobs and the sector contributing £60Bn a year (7.3%) to the UK economy. Over the past decade, the creative sector has grown at twice the rate of the economy as a whole; (iii) heritage tourism sector contributing £7.4Bn p.a. to the UK economy and supporting 466,000 equivalent jobs. Without the CDT, this crucially important economy sector will experience an unsustainable loss of capacity. The impact will be achieved in collaboration with our Partners: Electronics, Sensors, Photonics KTN, TIGA and Qi3, a technology commercialisation, business development and knowledge transfer company.
4. Public: The intensive public engagement activities are built into CDT including dissemination and engagement events at heritage institutions, popular science conferences and fora, e.g. Cheltenham Science Festival, European Science Open Forum and British Science Festival, as well as events organised by the HEIs' Beacon projects (e.g. UCL Bright Club). Cross-cohort encouragement to engage in these events will realise the substantial potential for the CDT to popularise science and engineering. More widely, visitors and users of heritage will benefit from the development of new and more engaging presentation tools, and pervasive and mobile computing.
5. Policy: SEAHA will engage with policy makers, by contributing evidence to policies and research agendas (the PI is actively involved in the EU JPI Cultural Heritage and Global Change, in which she advised on the development of the EU Cultural Heritage Research Agenda endorsed on 22/03/2013) and develop policy briefings for governmental and parliamentary bodies. The CDT is also a strategically important development of the AHRC/EPSRC Science and Heritage Programme ensuring continued global UK leadership in the SEAHA domain.
People |
ORCID iD |
| David Thomas (Primary Supervisor) | |
| Samuel Woor (Student) |