Saudi Arabia’s Heritage Commission announced Thursday the discovery of Masiyun, an 11,000–10,300-year-old pre-pottery Neolithic settlement northwest of Tabuk, which it said is the oldest documented architectural site in the Arabian Peninsula.
The 11,000-square-meter site, only 30 percent of which has been excavated, contained semi-circular granite structures interpreted as dwellings, storage rooms, corridors and fire pits. A joint Saudi–Japanese team from Kanazawa University, working since December 2022 with the NEOM project, completed four field seasons that produced radiocarbon dates from charcoal lenses and fixed Masiyun to the early Neolithic.
“Among the oldest in the world, the settlement redraws the map of the emergence of civilizations,” said Ajab Al-Otaibi, director general of the commission’s antiquities sector, according to Arab News. He added that the remains illustrated the shift from mobile foraging to organized community life “economically, culturally, and religiously.”
Archaeologists recovered arrowheads, knives, grain mills, sickles, wheat kernels and animal bones, indicating mixed farming, hunting and early livestock management. Beads and pendants fashioned from amazonite, quartz and shells, alongside engraved stone plaques, pointed to community craft production and symbolic activities.
Human and animal burials lay inside stone-lined graves. “The residents went beyond mere settlement to practice daily rituals and ceremonies,” said Abdullah Al-Zahrani, an archaeologist with the commission, according to Asharq Al-Awsat, noting three human skeletons uncovered so far.
Masiyun sat on ancient trade and migration routes that linked it with Mesopotamia, the Levant and Anatolia. “The transformations from mobility to settlement were tied to mutual influence with the Fertile Crescent,” Al-Zahrani said.
“No comparable settlement exists, even in famous sites like Al-Thumama and Al-Dusariyah,” said Fuji, head of the Japanese team, as reported by Asharq Al-Awsat. He estimated that continued excavation of the remaining 70 percent could reveal further insights into social organization and external contacts.
The site was first entered on the National Antiquities Register in 1978, but its true age was confirmed only through the recent joint campaign. “The discovery opens new horizons for understanding the history of the Arabian Peninsula and confirms that the Kingdom was part of an active civilizational network thousands of years ago,” said Khalid Al-Asmari, head of the archaeology department at King Saud University, according to Asharq News.
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