The Batinah coast of Oman is a region critical to understanding the role of human-environmental interactions during the Early Bronze Age. The rare site of Dahwa is a large industrial settlement that was used intensively for copper smelting. Excavation of the site has revealed important information about the relationship between the prehistoric Oman Peninsula and the Indus Valley.

This lecture will report the findings from the excavation of the large monumental tomb and bone pit at the Dahwa site. The excellent preservation of these mortuary contexts allows detailed reconstruction of the mortuary ritual and study of the material culture interred.

Kimberly D. Williams is a mortuary archaeologist/bioarchaeologist whose current research is focused on the mortuary and landscape archaeology in Southeastern Arabia. Her current and future work focuses on questions about prehistoric mortuary ritual, funerary landscape formation and use, interred material culture, and archaeological human skeletal remains all recovered via survey and excavation. She leads ongoing work in Oman.