Tombs and Trade: Strontium and Mobility at ed-Dur (U.A.E)

Abstract

Archaeological work in the United Arab Emirates, once thought to have been a peripheral area of minor significance, has revealed it was a strategic and prosperous region within an extensive trade network. A significant part of this network was the coastal site of ed-Dur, located in the modern-day Emirate of Umm al-Qaiwain and occupied primarily from 0- 250AD. The aim of this thesis is to explore origin and mobility in the population who inhabited this site. Analysis of strontium isotopes in past human populations has been used in previous studies to explore hypotheses surrounding questions of origins and migration. By acting as a geochemical marker of a particular region, the ratio of strontium isotopes can be used to infer origin and mobility in an archaeological population. However, this technique is not without limitations. The porous nature of bone that leaves it prone to post-depositional alteration, along with issues of diet and remodelling, have called into question its suitability for this sort of analysis. The United Arab Emirates is an environment notorious for poor preservation of skeletal remains. This study tested 32 samples: 18 human bones, six human teeth, seven domesticate bones, two fish bones and one camel tooth. These remains were fragmentary and badly preserved. X-ray fluorescence analysis was employed to measure elemental concentrations in the bone samples in an attempt to test for contamination. This confirmed that postdepositional alteration had occurred and consequently the isotopic signals were diagenetic and not biogenic in nature. These bone samples were therefore used as a proxy for the local isotopic signature at ed-Dur, so that foreign origins could be determined in the six noncontaminated dental samples. The results suggest that, of the six individuals tested, two were foreign-born along with one camel dental sample that was tested. Further biogeochemical analysis in this region will improve our understanding of the people who populated the United Arab Emirates in the past.