Arabia

Abstract

Arabia covers an area in excess of 2.5 million sq km. It is bounded on the west by the Gulf of Aqaba and the Red Sea, on the south by the Arabian Sea and on the east by the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman. Arabia's northern boundary is less clear-cut, its arid landscape merging into the Mesopotamian alluvium and the Syrian Desert. This chapter focuses exclusively upon the prehistory of the Arabian Peninsula, that is, the modern countries of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Oman and Yemen, in the period from the Early Holocene to the 1st millennium BCE.