Thriving Crossroads: A Study of the Origin and Evolution of Northern Kuwait Bay’s Protohistoric Dry-Stone Tombs and their Builders

This paper investigates the emergence of Late Neolithic / Chalcolithic and Bronze Age (6th to 2nd millennium BCE) funerary megalithism on the northern coastline of Kuwait Bay. In this particular region, megalithism developed in the form of dry-stone tomb necropolises. Current research suggests that during the chronological frame under consideration, the territory of presentday Kuwait represented a thriving sociocultural and economic crossroads, thanks to its convenient location at the interface between the influences of the Arabic Neolithic tribes and that of the flourishing Mesopotamian and Dilmun civilizations. The effect of these sociocultural and socioeconomic spheres on the local populations are investigated through an appraisal of the available archaeological data, in terms of funerary and non-funerary architecture, material productions, burial rites and bioanthropological characteristics of the deceased.