Settlement and Landscape Transformations in the Khaybar Oasis From Late Antiquity to the Late Islamic Period

Abstract

ABSTRACT Archaeological survey and targeted soundings by the Khaybar Longue Durée Archaeological Project ( Khaybar LDAP ) have provided the opportunity to reconstruct a first overview of settlement dynamics, land use and socioeconomic organisation from the late pre‐Islamic period through the subsequent centuries of Islamic rule in the Khaybar oasis, northwestern Arabia. The chronological model we advance, informed by radiocarbon evidence and extensive remote sensing data suggests an occupational continuity from the late fourth through the seventh centuries CE . with no indications of sharp discontinuity into the Islamic period. From the seventh century, a significant reconfiguration of settlement patterns and landscape exploitation can be detected, with archaeological evidence for substantial investment in hydraulic infrastructure indicating the organised management of water resources at a considerable scale. Assemblages and radiocarbon dates from the late eighth through to the tenth century signal heightened external connectivity at that time, with material culture indicative of non‐local influences and wealth accumulation consistent with integration into superregional exchange and political networks. Data for the subsequent Middle Islamic period suggest a contraction in settlement distribution, pointing toward a more localised economy. In the Late Islamic period a pattern of landscape sharing between sedentary and nomadic populations is clear. Across all phases, a picture of sustained continuity in water management practices and the fundamental structure of oasis settlement emerges, despite variable archaeological visibility and periodic shifts in the scale and orientation of political and economic activity.