Mysterious 4,000-year-old fortified settlement discovered in Saudi Arabian oasis

Archaeologists have discovered a mysterious 4,000-year-old fortified settlement in , which they say reveals details of the region's shift from a nomadic lifestyle to an urban existence.

The remains of the town, which dates back to the early Bronze Age, were found in Khaybar, an oasis in the Province. The long-lost town, named al-Natah, was hidden by the walled oasis, made of fertile land surrounded by desert area, according to a new study.

A team of French-Saudi researchers uncovered the town, which dates back to 2,400 BC and is believed to have been inhabited by approximately 500 residents. Scientists believe al-Natah was around a thousand years later, but it's not clear why.

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French archaeologist Guillaume Charloux, who led the study published in the journal on October 30, told AFP that an ancient 14.5km-long wall was discovered at the site. He said that during their research, scientists provided "proof that these ramparts are organised around a habitat."

The well-planned town included a residential area connected by small streets where its residents once lived, as well as a necropolis and a central area which researchers described as "a decision-making zone." When al-Natah was built, cities were flourishing in the Levant region along the Mediterranean Sea, from present-day Syria to Jordan.

Until recently, northwest Arabia was thought to have been barren desert at the time, crossed by pastoral nomads and dotted with burial sites. However, this changed 15 years ago, when archaeologists discovered wall fortifications dating back to the Bronze Age in the oasis of Tayma, north of Khaybar. Mr Charloux said that this "first essential discovery" prompted scientists to look closer at these oases, which led to the latest find.

He added that black volcanic rocks, basalt, concealed the walls of the town so well that it "protected the site from illegal excavations." However, he explained that observing the site from above revealed potential paths and the foundations of houses, suggesting where the archaeologists needed to dig.

Mr Charloux said the foundations found at the site were "strong enough to easily support at least one- or two-storey" homes. According to the study, scientists also found pieces of pottery which "suggest a relatively egalitarian society" - with Mr Charloux saying they are "very pretty but very simple ceramics."

He said that while al-Natah was still small compared to cities in Mesopotamia or Egypt during the Bronze Age, it now appears that there was "another path towards urbanisation" than such city-states in these areas of desert, which Mr Charloux described as "more modest, much slower, and quite specific to the northwest of Arabia."

The scientist wrote in the conclusion of the study: "The new archaeological evidence from Khaybar introduced in this article confirms a stage of major socio-economic transition from a mobile way of life to sedentarization and town life between the second half of the third millennium and the early second millennium BCE (prior to abandonment of Khaybar in the mid second millennium BCE). This radical change in life style, from a pastoral-nomadic way of life to more agro-pastoral subsistence, and in mortuary practices (from funerary avenues to site necropolis), had a profound impact on autochthonous socio-economic organization and complexity."