Three needs are famously fundamental to survival: food, water, and shelter.
We had no expectations to find archaeology at Umm Jirsan.
In fact, we were mostly interested in seeing the large caches of bones that had been previously reported.
The mouth of the Umm Jirsan lava tube.Photo: Green Arabia Project
But the team concluded that Umm Jirsan was probably not permanently occupied.
So you could think of Umm Jirsan more as an ancient truck stop than a place of residence.
The rock art described by the team was found at a nearby collapsed lava tube northeast of Umm Jirsan.
The interior of the lava tube.Photo: Green Arabia Project
The researchers reported 16 rock art panels depicting cattle, sheep, goats, and possibly ibexes.
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