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the peninsula, but degrees of awareness of archaeology, heritage, and history vary greatly from country to country. Journals for the dissemination of archaeological research exist in Oman (Journal of Oman Studies) and Saudi Arabia (Atlal), and in varying degrees, antiquities laws have been passed and departments of antiquities have been set up and empowered to protect local sites and monuments. Finding bright and competent nationals to pursue careers in archaeology has been difficult, however, for in many of the countries of the peninsula the monetary rewards to be won in business by a bright student so far surpass what one can expect to earn and achieve as a civil servant that few of the best and brightest have been attracted to a career in archaeology.
The neocolonial aspect of foreign teams exploiting the past of a host country is only part of the truth, however, for in many cases the attitude taken toward archaeologists is the same as that taken toward petroleum engineers or any other foreign technical specialist. If non-Arabs from the West have the particular expertise needed to investigate the past that is lacking locally, then there is no harm in letting such work be done by them. Moreover, in all of the countries of the peninsula there is a certain population of nonlocal Arab archaeologists working on a contract basis for the universities and antiquities departments, which often includes scholars with advanced degrees from universities in the West. Just as American or British engineers seek lucrative employment in the tax-free Gulf states, so, too, do archaeologists from the Sudan, Egypt, India, Pakistan, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria for whom the language and culture of the Arabian states is no barrier to the pursuit of their profession. In some rare cases, such as Oman, however, programs to nationalize the workforce have tended to push foreign “experts” out of certain jobs, including archaeological advisory ones, which has affected Arab and Asian archaeologists as well as Western ones.
References
Al-Ansary, A.R. 1982. Qaryat al-Fau: A Portrait of Pre-Islamic Civilisation in Saudi Arabia. London: Croom Helm.
Bibby, T.G. 1969. Looking for Dilmun. New York: Knopf.
Grohmann, A. 1963. Arabien. Munich: Beck.
Hogarth, D.G. 1904. The Penetration of Arabia. London: Lawrence and Bullen.
Hommel, F. 1903. “Explorations in Arabia.” In Explorations in Bible Lands during the 19th Century. Ed. H.V. Hilprecht. Philadelphia: A.J. Holman.
Phillips, W. 1955. Qataban and Sheba. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company.
Potts, D.T. 1990. The Arabian Gulf in Antiquity. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Born in Paris, Camille Arambourg graduated as an agricultural engineer and became interested in paleontology when he discovered fossil fish while working at improving the water supply of his parents’ vineyard in Algeria. He fought in the Dardanelles and in Macedonia during World War I, and afterward his interest in fossils led him to undertake further studies in geology.
In 1920, Arambourg became professor of geology at l’Institut Agricole d’Alger where he worked for the next ten years. During that time he also studied in Paris under marcellin boule at the Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle. In 1932–1933, he led an expedition to the Omo Valley in Ethiopia where he collected Pleistocene vertebrate fossils and made a detailed study of the geology of the region. In 1938, he succeeded Boule at the museum and moved to Paris.
After World War II, Arambourg returned to work in North Africa. In 1947–1948, he excavated at Saint Arnaud (now Ain Hanech) in northern Algeria, and along with other fossils located in this early Pleistocene site, Arambourg found worked, spheroid stone tools, the first to be found in North Africa. In 1954–1955, he excavated at Ternifine near Mascara in northwestern Algeria, and there he found fragments of three hominid mandibles, a parietal bone in association with Acheulean bifaces, Clactonian-like stone tools, and a rich variety of extinct mammalian bones. Based on this evidence, Arambourg argued that the Acheulean stone toolmakers had been “pithecanthropoid” hominids, a theory that was reinforced by a similar discovery at a Moroccan site in 1955. Arambourg
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