For years, a site believed to have been largely uninhabited between 60,000 and 12,000 years ago has been re-evaluated, as new research has revealed evidence of repeated human occupation at the Buhais Rockshelter, an archaeological site in Sharjah, United Arab Emirates. These findings challenge long-held assumptions about human settlement in southeastern Arabia and paint a clearer picture of how early populations adapted to the changing environment. The study, published Monday, March 23 nature communicationIt was led by Isa Yousef, Director General of Sharjah Archeology Authority (SAA), and Dr. Saba Jassim, Advisor to the Authority. It was conducted in collaboration with researchers from the Universities of Tübingen and Freiburg in Germany, as well as Dr. Knut Bretzke of the Friedrich Schiller University Jena and Professor Adrian Parker of Oxford Brookes University. Title Evidence from the Buhais Rockshelter for human habitation in Arabia between 60,000 and 16,000 years agoResearch identifies several phases of human presence at the site, dating back to approximately 125,000, 59,000, 35,000 and 16,000 years ago. Youssef said, “The publication of this study is a major step forward in our understanding of early human history in this region. The evidence from Buhais demonstrates that southeastern Arabia was not simply a passage for early humans, but a landscape where they returned, adapted, and maintained life under changing environmental conditions.”
Overview of Buhais Rockshelter/Image: Nature Communications
These findings are based on extensive archaeological excavations at the Buhais Rockshelter, located within Sharjah’s Faya Palaeolandscape, a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2025. The results add an important new chapter to the early settlement history of the Arabian Peninsula and extend the well-established Jebel Faya archaeological sequence into a previously unspecified time frame.
Overview of excavations at Buhais Rockshelter/Image: Nature Communications
For decades, it was widely believed that southeastern Arabia was largely uninhabited between 60,000 and 12,000 years ago due to extreme aridity during the last ice age. The new study directly challenges that notion. Rather than a prolonged absence of human activity, the evidence points to repeated occupation during different periods, suggesting that early humans were able to survive and bounce back despite harsh climatic conditions. Rather than representing a single phase of habitation, research confirms multiple phases of recurring human activity at the site. While evidence of human presence was already known from about 125,000 years ago, the identification of three additional phases from about 59,000, 35,000 and 16,000 years ago fills important gaps in the archaeological record of the region. These findings provide a more continuous timeline of human presence in southeastern Arabia than previously thought. This study also builds on additional paleoenvironmental research conducted within the Faya paleolandscape. This data shows that periods of human occupation coincide with phases of increased rainfall and water availability. These environmental improvements would have supported vegetation and created conditions suitable for human life, providing an obvious explanation for the repeated return of populations to the site. This is the first clear evidence linking human settlement to specific environmental conditions during this time frame in Arabia. The findings show that early populations were not only passing through the region as part of migration routes, but were also able to adapt to the changing climate and sustain life over long periods of time. The Buhais Rockshelter itself played an important role in preserving this record. Its limestone formations provided natural shelter, allowing layers of sediment to form over thousands of years. These layers, reaching a depth of about 1.7 metres, preserve stone tools and artefacts in a stratigraphic sequence, providing valuable insights into human activity in different periods. Using luminescence dating techniques, the researchers were able to determine when these sediment layers were last exposed to sunlight. This method enabled them to reconstruct a detailed timeline of both human presence and environmental change, providing a rare and well-preserved record of life in the arid landscape over thousands of years. Southeastern Arabia has long been considered a major corridor for early human movement out of Africa and into Asia. The new findings provide empirical evidence that the region was not only a passage route but also a place of repeated settlement during several stages of human evolution. This places the region at the center of ongoing scientific discussions on global human migration and the formation of early populations in Southwest Asia. Combined with nearby discoveries at Jebel Faya, which document human activity in the area dating back more than 200,000 years, the study reinforces the wider importance of the Faya paleolandscape. The site is now recognized as one of the most important and continuous records of early human occupation in an arid environment. The research also reflects decades of work led by the Sharjah Archeology Authority in collaboration with international institutions. This long-term partnership has combined scientific expertise with a shared commitment to the preservation and interpretation of early human history. The growing collection of evidence from sites such as Buhais and Jebel Faya continues to highlight the UAE and Sharjah’s contribution to the global narrative of human development, adaptation and migration.