# South Arabia’s prehistoric monument landscape shows social resilience to climate change

## TL;DR

Ancient monuments in Oman's arid region reveal how desert communities adapted to climate change over 7000 years.

## Contribution

A new model showing monuments as flexible tools for social resilience in desert pastoralist societies.

## Key findings

- Earlier monuments were built by larger groups during the Holocene Humid Period.
- Monument construction shifted to smaller groups and repetitive visits as the climate became drier.
- Monuments served as a flexible technology to maintain social resilience in changing environments.

## Abstract

In arid regions across northern Africa, Asia and Arabia, ancient pastoralists constructed small-scale stone monuments of varying form, construction, placement, age, and function. Classification studies of each type have inhibited a broader model of their collective and enduring role within desert socio-ecosystems. Our multivariate analysis of 371 archaeological monuments in the arid Dhofar region of Oman identifies environmental and cultural factors that influenced variable placement and construction across a 7000-year history. Our results show that earlier monuments were built by larger, concurrent groups during the Holocene Humid Period (10,000–6000 cal BP). With increasing aridification, smaller groups constructed monuments and eventually switched to building them in repetitive visits. Our model emphasizes the core role of monuments as a flexible technology in social resilience among desert pastoralists.