The discovery that camel rock carvings in a Saudi Arabian desert date back approximately 12,000 years confirms that humans thrived in the extremely arid climate earlier than previously thought. A new theory suggests that these life-sized stone carvings of camels and other animals may have served as signposts marking the location of oases, the desert's key water sources.
A research team led by Maria Guagnin of the Max Planck Institute for Geoanthropology in Germany discovered and analyzed rock carvings of animals like camels and gazelles in Saudi Arabia's Nefud Desert, dating them to about 12,000 years ago. The team published their findings on the 30th (local time) in the international journal 'Nature Communications'. Near the rock art, stone tools believed to have been used for carving were also discovered.
It is estimated that the desert now covering most of the Arabian Peninsula was widely dotted with small lakes until about 25,000 years ago, allowing humans and diverse animals to gather and live. Following this period, climate change during the Ice Age made the region even more arid than today for 5,000 years, rendering it almost uninhabitable. Scant archaeological evidence for human habitation in northern Arabia has been found dating to before approximately 10,000 years ago.
In 2022, Guagnin's team discovered life-sized camel rock carvings in the northern Nefud Desert of Saudi Arabia. At the time, it was suggested that the carvings were artworks created by humans who had returned to the area, but accurately dating them proved difficult. While dating could be compared with nearby artifacts, this method has a high degree of uncertainty.
The team used radioisotope dating on artifacts such as ostrich eggs, oyster shells, and charcoal from hearths, and also analyzed the surrounding sediment layers to determine how much time had passed since they were last exposed to sunlight. The results dated the artifacts to between approximately 12,800 and 11,400 years ago. This finding overturns the previous hypothesis that the desert rock art was created by a human group that occupied the region around 7,000 years ago.
Analysis of the area's sediment confirmed traces of an oasis. "This means that ancient hunter-gatherers inhabited the northern Arabian desert earlier than previously thought," said Guagnin. "It essentially proves that the rock art tradition began around 12,000 years ago, at the end of the last Ice Age."
The research team identified similar camel drawings at three sites distributed approximately 30 km apart. They surmised that the human group that created the carvings not only utilized the nearby oases but also used the drawings as signposts to guide others to them.
While these findings do not prove a direct link between the stone tool makers and the artists who created the rock art, they suggest that humans adapted to and lived in the desert's arid climate during a period for which there was previously little evidence.
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- doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-63417-y
