Thanks for this reply. I wonder though if it was so unusual for there to be large communities of people living together this long ago and sharing a common culture.
I would think that there would be strength in numbers and that people would gravitate to those places where their daily needs were likely to be satisfied. If there were resource issues, such as food in particular, then we would expect to see more nomadic settlements like we see in north America from pre-Clovis sites. Those sites tended to be occupied seasonally with no permanent structures erected. The people who visited used natural shelters such as the caves or overhangs along creeks and rivers and evidence indicates they were used for thousands of years.
For these people to construct a city they would need not only to have reliable food sources to feed everyone living there but they would need fresh water and shelter.
It appears that they constructed dwellings for many people and this implies the availability of food and water. Food would obviously involve taking advantage of local wild and domesticated animals. To insure daily supplies were adequate these animals would need to be kept close enough to the settlements that it was convenient to get fresh food daily. That is why I think some of these are likely pens. They don't all have to be though. As the settlement size increases the supply of food on hand must also increase. It is likely that since they obviously had fresh water available back then they likely engaged in some form of agriculture, harvesting seeds or fruits of berries, etc locally.
Since some of these sites are large it is reasonable to assume that they share a culture and that each site knew of and traded with their neighbors sharing the burdens of managing food supplies and defense from predators and from common enemies.
Cult to me, being here in Texas, has negative connotations for obvious reasons. We have been host to more than one over the last few decades and a new one has moved in that could turn out to be worse than all the previous cults combined.
I would prefer that these ancient people who shared a culture and beliefs and who enjoyed living in close proximity to each other had a name that humanize them instead of one that could demonize them. The Al Ula people sounds better to me or the Khaybar society.
These links [0], [1] look to have a lot more information about the sites and may have been part of the source for the BBC article.
I am assuming the article is contrasting the long periods of nomadic lifestyle that ruled over Arabia with the more stationary society suggested by the existence of those mustatils.
As for the heads of the cattle, I can easily imagine the mustatils to be some sort of combination farm-market where you would kill the cattle, burry the head, and give the rest to the consumer who would take it far away to their dwelling or on their journey if they happen to be nomadic; leading to random distribution of the rest of the carcass pieces.
I would think that there would be strength in numbers and that people would gravitate to those places where their daily needs were likely to be satisfied. If there were resource issues, such as food in particular, then we would expect to see more nomadic settlements like we see in north America from pre-Clovis sites. Those sites tended to be occupied seasonally with no permanent structures erected. The people who visited used natural shelters such as the caves or overhangs along creeks and rivers and evidence indicates they were used for thousands of years.
For these people to construct a city they would need not only to have reliable food sources to feed everyone living there but they would need fresh water and shelter.
It appears that they constructed dwellings for many people and this implies the availability of food and water. Food would obviously involve taking advantage of local wild and domesticated animals. To insure daily supplies were adequate these animals would need to be kept close enough to the settlements that it was convenient to get fresh food daily. That is why I think some of these are likely pens. They don't all have to be though. As the settlement size increases the supply of food on hand must also increase. It is likely that since they obviously had fresh water available back then they likely engaged in some form of agriculture, harvesting seeds or fruits of berries, etc locally.
Since some of these sites are large it is reasonable to assume that they share a culture and that each site knew of and traded with their neighbors sharing the burdens of managing food supplies and defense from predators and from common enemies.
Cult to me, being here in Texas, has negative connotations for obvious reasons. We have been host to more than one over the last few decades and a new one has moved in that could turn out to be worse than all the previous cults combined.
I would prefer that these ancient people who shared a culture and beliefs and who enjoyed living in close proximity to each other had a name that humanize them instead of one that could demonize them. The Al Ula people sounds better to me or the Khaybar society.
These links [0], [1] look to have a lot more information about the sites and may have been part of the source for the BBC article.
[0](https://www.ancient-origins.net/news-history-archaeology/mus...)
[1](https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/antiquity/article/mu...)