Early settlement in Hadramawt: preliminary report on prehistoric occupation at Shi'b Munayder

While excavation and survey in Wadi Hadramawt itself has documented extensi ve first-millennium population centres and complex irrigation systems, earl ier settlement and production remain poorly documented. Results of recent s urvey and test excavations in the mountainous hinterlands of southern Arabi a have revealed scattered settlement near fossil springs that may have prov ided an important focus from as early as 6000 years ago. Lithic studies of surface material suggest that the widespread house sites at Shi'b Munayder in Wadi Idim were re-occupied or re-used as late as the Iron Age early-mid- first millennium BC. But stratigraphic evidence and a radiocarbon date poin t to an earlier establishment of settlement during at least the post-Neolit hic second millennium BC. The site of Shi'b Munayder, the earliest reported settlement in Hadramawt, seems to suggest that Hadrami peoples living at t he time of the early establishment of complex centres retained ties with cu ltural groups to the east rather than with highland northern Yemen.