Ancient Coastal Ressources Exploitation During the Arabian Neolithic : The Settlements of Ra’s al Hamra 6 and 5 (Sultanate of Oman)

Coastal lands were very exploited during the Neolithic period in the North of the Arabian Peninsula. In the Sultanate of Oman, numerous shell-middens took place all along the coast and are the mainly known sites for this period. Theses shell-middens, composed mainly by seashells, fishes, turtles and mammals bones, testify that the marine ressources, mostly fishes and seashells, were the main part of the subsisdance behavior for theses prehistoric people. However, this part of the history of this region is still poorly known and very few studies on the fish bones have been carried out. This study present some of the results of a PhD lead about the prehistoric fishing way in the Sultanate of Oman, which is carry about 7 archaeological sites. This PhD take place in a bigger project lead by french and italian teams about the oman neolithic way of life. Here we present the results from the major sites of Ra’s al-Hamra 6 (5500 – 4500 BC) and 5 (4500 – 3500 BC)