Jérémie Schiettecatte
Dr Jérémie Schiettecatte’s current interests lay in the analysis of the evolution of settlement patterns in the Arabian Peninsula and the Horn of Africa from the Bronze Age to the Late Antiquity. Since 2000, he has been working in Bahrain, United Arab Emirates, Yemen, Saudi Arabia and Ethiopia. He directed the Saudi-French Archaeological Project in al-Kharj (Saudi Arabia) from 2011 to 2016 and holds a PhD in Near-Eastern archaeology from the Sorbonne University (Paris).
An Archaeological Account of the Settlement Process in Central Arabia (c. 3000 BCE – 1800 CE): Results of the Saudi- French archaeological mission in al-Kharj.
As one of the few watered areas in the Najd, the region of al-Kharj has played a significant role in the political, economic, and religious history of the Arabian Peninsula. In 2011, a French-Saudi archaeological mission started surveying the area. Middle Paleolithic, Bronze Age, Late Antique, and Early Islamic sites have been located and excavated. This lecture is an opportunity to show how a Central Arabian oasis progressively became populated, and then settled and cultivated by making the most of its hydraulic resources. A special emphasis will be placed on both the funerary landscape of the Bronze Age – through the excavation of the main necropolises – and on the site of al-Yamâma (5th cent. BCE-18th cent. CE), the ancient Jawn al-Khadârim.