section_path: History/Prehistory
section_name: Prehistory
paragraph_text: Prehistory
  
  There is evidence that human habitation in the Arabian Peninsula dates back to about 125 000 years ago. A 2011 study found that the first modern humans to spread east across Asia left Africa about 75 000 years ago across the Bab-el-Mandeb connecting the Horn of Africa and Arabia. The Arabian Peninsula is regarded as central to the understanding of evolution and dispersals of Man. Arabia underwent an extreme environmental fluctuation in the Quaternary that led to profound evolutionary and demographic changes. Arabia has a rich Lower Paleolithic record, and the quantity of Oldowan -like sites in the region indicate a significant role that Arabia had played in the early hominin colonization of Eurasia.
  
  In the Neolithic period, prominent cultures such as Al-Magar, whose centre lay in modern-day southwestern Najd, flourished. Al-Magar could be considered a "Neolithic Revolution" in human knowledge and handicraft skills. The culture is characterized as being one of the world's first to involve the widespread domestication of animals, particularly the horse, during the Neolithic period. Al-Magar statues were made from local stone, and it seems that the statues were fixed in a central building that might have had a significant role in the social and religious life of the inhabitants.
  
  In November 2017, hunting scenes showing images of most likely domesticated dogs (resembling the Canaan Dog) and wearing leashes were discovered in Shuwaymis, a hilly region of northwestern Saudi Arabia. These rock engravings date back more than 8 000 years, making them the earliest depictions of dogs in the world.
  
  At the end of the 4th millennium BC, Arabia entered the Bronze Age; metals were widely used, and the period was characterized by its 2 m high burials which were simultaneously followed by the existence of numerous temples that included many free-standing sculptures originally painted with red colours.
  
  In May 2021, archaeologists announced that a 350 000 -year-old Acheulean site named An Nasim in the Hail region could be the oldest human habitation site in northern Saudi Arabia. 354 artefacts, including hand axes and stone tools, provided information about tool-making traditions of the earliest living man inhabited south-west Asia. Paleolithic artefacts are similar to material remains uncovered at the Acheulean sites in the Nefud Desert.