Abstract
Small circular cairn tombs found across southern Arabia offer an intriguing window into the movements and mortuary practices of ancient hinterland peoples. This chapter briefly reports preliminary results of archaeological survey, automated detection efforts and spatial distribution analysis for such tombs across the Southern Jol area of Hadramawt Governate Yemen. The most detailed level of survey recording was conducted for 394 tombs, an automated detection algorithm (to shortly be reported in far greater detail elsewhere) yielded highly promising results, and GIS analyses indicate associations between tombs and water-rich areas.
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Acknowledgements
This chapter briefly reviews some of the methods and preliminary results generated by the multidisciplinary AHSD research team led by Joy McCorriston and supported by National Science Foundation Grant BCS#0624268. Many participants deserve thanks including Dorota Brzezinska, Jihye Park, Tara Steimer-Herbet, Catherine Heyne, Jennifer Everhart, Kimberly Williams, Abdalaziz Bin ‘Aqil, Khalid Badhofary, Abdalkarim Barkany, and Ietha Al-Amary. We are also grateful to the Republic of Yemen General Organization for Antiquities and Museums (GOAM) inclluding Abdullah Ba Wazir, and to Canadian Nexen Petroleum including Gregor Mawhinney, Alan Brindley, Kevin Tracy, Rick Jensen, Dave Smith and Kevin Marlow for their support.
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Harrower, M.J., Schuetter, J., McCorriston, J., Goel, P.K., Senn, M.J. (2013). Survey, Automated Detection, and Spatial Distribution Analysis of Cairn Tombs in Ancient Southern Arabia. In: Mapping Archaeological Landscapes from Space. SpringerBriefs in Archaeology(), vol 5. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-6074-9_22
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