ArticlePloS one2023
Cult, herding, and 'pilgrimage' in the Late Neolithic of north-west Arabia: Excavations at a mustatil east of AlUla.
Article in PloS one, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.
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4 citing papers in PubMed.
- First results from the mustatils of the Harrat Khaybar: New insights into neolithic cult in Northwest Saudi Arabia.PloS one · 2026Article
- Monumental rock art illustrates that humans thrived in the Arabian Desert during the Pleistocene-Holocene transition.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Novel archaeological and palaeontological findings in cave and palaeoriver landscapes of inland northeast Arabia.PloS one · 2025Article
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10 authors.
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Abstract
Since the 1970s, monumental stone structures now called mustatil have been documented across Saudi Arabia. However, it was not until 2017 that the first intensive and systematic study of this structure type was undertaken, although this study could not determine the precise function of these features. Recent excavations in AlUla have now determined that these structures fulfilled a ritual purpose, with specifically selected elements of both wild and domestic taxa deposited around a betyl. This paper outlines the results of the University of Western Australia's work at site IDIHA-0008222, a 140 m long mustatil (IDIHA-F-0011081), located 55 km east of AlUla. Work at this site sheds new and important light on the cult, herding and 'pilgrimage' in the Late Neolithic of north-west Arabia, with the site revealing one of the earliest chronometrically dated betyls in the Arabian Peninsula and some of the earliest evidence for domestic cattle in northern Arabia.
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