Proceedings of the Seminar for Arabian Studies Volume 46, 2016

Dr Janet Starkey formerly worked at KISR, Kuwait, and elsewhere in the Middle East; at the British Museum, London and the Oriental Museum, Durham; and as a lecturer in anthropology and Middle Eastern studies at Durham University, UK. Following her retirement from Durham, she lectures for the u3a in the Scottish Borders.

• Editors’ Foreword; The founding of the Seminar and the Society for Arabian Studies (Peter J. Parr); In memoriam Andrzej Zaborski (1942–2014); Trade beads of FurayΉah. Evidence of trade and connections of Qatar in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries from a small-finds perspective (Ann Andersson); ΚUbaid-related sites of the southern Gulf revisited: the Abu Dhabi Coastal Heritage Initiative (Mark Jonathan Beech, Kristian Strutt, Lucy Blue, Abdulla Khalfan al-Kaabi, Waleed Awad Omar, Ahmed Abdulla al-Haj El-Faki, Anjana Reddy Lingareddy & John Martin); Investigating the eastern edge of the kingdom of Aksum: architecture and pottery from Wakarida (Anne Benoist, Julien Charbonnier & Iwona Gajda); Seashell discs from the Early Iron Age graves of Daba (Dibbā, Sultanate of Oman) (poster) (Francesco Paolo Caputo & Francesco Genchi); The Crowded Desert: a multi-phase archaeological survey in the north-west of Qatar (Jose C. Carvajal Lopez, Laura Morabito, Robert Carter, Richard Fletcher & Faisal Abdullah al-Naimi); The social significance of ceramic change at the start of the Wadi Suq period. Rethinking ceramic continuity and change based on recent evidence from the tombs at Qarn al-Дarf (Michel de Vreeze); Iron Age metallurgy at Salūt (Sultanate of Oman): a preliminary note (poster) (Michele Degli Esposti, Martina Renzi & Thilo Rehren); The Asaila depression, an archaeological landscape in Qatar (Philipp Drechsler, Max Engel, Dominik Brill & Christoph Gerber); Dennys Frenez, Michele Degli Esposti, Sophie Méry & Jonathan Mark Kenoyer, Bronze Age Salūt (ST1) and the Indus Civilization: recent discoveries and new insights on regional interaction ; The divine names at Dadan: a philological approach (María del Carmen Hidalgo-Chacón Díez); Reassessing the impact of natural landscape factors on spatial strategies in the Petra hinterland in Nabataean-Roman times (Will M. Kennedy); The Rustaq-Batinah Archaeological Survey (Derek Kennet, William M. Deadman & Nasser Said al-Jahwari); Lithic assemblage from FNS-7 (Wādī al-Дarīmah): new evidence about the fifth-millennium BC hunter-gatherers of coastal Oman (poster) (Maria Pia Maiorano); The Awām Temple cemetery in Marib (MaΜrib) revisited (Clara Mancarella); Middle to Late Neolithic animal exploitation at UAQ2 (5500–4000 cal BC): an ΚUbaid-related coastal site at Umm al-Quwain Emirate, United Arab Emirates (Marjan Mashkour, Mark Jonathan Beech, Karyne Debue, Lisa Yeomans, Stéphanie Bréhard, Dalia Gasparini & Sophie Méry); Humble beginnings? A closer look at social formation during Early Dilmun’s formative phase (c.2200–2050 BC) (Eric Olijdam); Al Ain Oases Mapping Project: QaΓΓārah Oasis, past and present (poster) (Timothy Power, Peter Sheehan, Shamsa Mohamed Al Dhaheri, Mariyam Abd Al Aziz Al Hammadi, Khuloud Ibrahim Al Hammadi & Afra Adnan Al Noaimi with Ayesha Muhsen Al Subaihi, Hamda Hasan Al Omar, Fatima Thani al-Romeithi, Muzna Khalifa Al Mansoori, Leqa Jawher Al Zaabi, Zainab Rubaiya Al Naemi, Mohamed Khalifa & Mohamed Al Dhaheri); Early Iron Age metal circulation in the Arabian Peninsula: the oasis of TaymāΜ as part of a dynamic network (poster) (Martina Renzi, Andrea Intilia, Arnulf Hausleiter & Thilo Rehren); Umm an-Nar pottery assemblages from Bāt and al-Zībā and their functional contexts (Conrad Schmidt & Stephanie Döpper); Ancient South Arabian correspondence on wooden sticks: new radiocarbon data (Peter Stein, Tobias J. Jocham & Michael J. Marx); Сabrah, a satellite hamlet of Petra (Laurent Tholbecq, Thibaud Fournet, Nicolas Paridaens, Soline Delcros & Caroline Durand); Papers read at the Seminar for Arabian Studies held at the British Museum, London, on 24–26 July 2015