Abstract
In Arabia, the first half of the sixth century CE was marked by the demise of Himyar, the dominant power in Arabia until 525 CE. Important social and political changes followed, which promoted the disintegration of the major Arabian polities. Here, we present hydroclimate records from around Southern Arabia, including a new high-resolution stalagmite record from northern Oman. These records clearly indicate unprecedented droughts during the sixth century CE, with the most severe aridity persisting between ~500 and 530 CE. We suggest that such droughts undermined the resilience of Himyar and thereby contributed to the societal changes from which Islam emerged.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 1317-1321 |
| Number of pages | 5 |
| Journal | Science |
| Volume | 376 |
| Issue number | 6599 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Jun 17 2022 |
| Externally published | Yes |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:We thank M. Cook, A. Izdebski, L. Mordechai, T. Newfield, and J. Tannous for their thoughtful comments. We also thank H. Mohammad al Azri of the Oman Ministry of Industry and Commerce and Z. Al Suleimani of the Ministry of Water Resources for their support during fieldwork. We are very grateful to A. Al Kathiri for showing us the location of Defore Cave. This work was supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation (grants PP002-110554/1 and CRSI22_132646/1 to D.F.), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (grant NSFC 41888101 to H.C.), the National Science Foundation (grant NSF 1701628 to R.L.E.), and the National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center (SNF grant DBI-1639145 to J.H.).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 American Association for the Advancement of Science. All rights reserved.
PubMed: MeSH publication types
- Historical Article
- Journal Article