Constructed around 7,000 years ago, mustatils are rectangular, low-walled stone structures ranging from 20 to 600 meters in length. Researchers first discovered them in the 1970s, and more than 1,600 mustatils have now been found, mainly in northern Saudi Arabia.
Recent excavations at the city of AlUla suggest that mustatils were used for ritual purposes that included animal sacrifices. Now Kennedy and her colleagues have conducted an extensive excavation in a mustatile 55 km east of AlUla. This mustatil is 140 meters long and was built from local sandstone.
In their analysis, the researchers identified 260 fragments of animal skulls and horns, mostly from domestic cattle, but also from domestic goats, gazelles and small ruminants. Almost all of the remains were grouped around a large, upright stone, known as a Bethyl is interpreted. Radiocarbon dating indicates that the betyl is one of the oldest stones found in the Arabian Peninsula, and the bones provide some of the earliest evidence of cattle domestication in northern Arabia.
The study also found evidence of multiple phases of sacrificial offerings at the Mustatil, as well as the burial of an adult male, suggesting that the site may have been a repeated destination for pilgrimage.
Taking all the new data into account, the researchers hypothesize that ritual belief and economic factors were more closely linked than previously thought for the Neolithic people of Northwest Arabia, and that this link extended over a large geographic area.
The authors add: “The ritual deposition of animal horns and upper skull parts at Mustatil suggests a deep entanglement of beliefs and economic ways in Late Neolithic northern Arabia. The incorporation of these two aspects suggests a deep-seated ideological entanglement that was shared across a great geographic distance, pointing to a far more interconnected landscape and culture than previously thought for Neolithic Northwest Arabia.”