The Sahara and Arabian deserts are traditionally thought to be the source of settled dust in the Middle East. Although there have been suggestions of evidence for contributions from local sources, isotopic and clay mineral data have not yet confirmed this. The current study adds the neodymium and strontium isotopic signals as well as the mineralogical composition of the clay fraction to earlier investigations of trapped Holocene eolian sediments in archeological structures carried out in the northern Negev, Israel, and the Petra region, Jordan. Identifying the Holocene and present-day dust source areas and weighing the relative importance of local and remote resources are the objectives of the current study. Illite-smectite (IS) predominates the clay fraction in the Negev, and kaolinite (Ka) in Petra. Clay minerals of both regions form a continuous line of two populations between dust end members of about 75% IS in the Negev and about 75% Ka in Petra. Petra and the Negev have εNd values of −8.8 to −14.1 and −5.1 to −8.6 and 87 Sr/ 86 Sr ratios between 0.7082 and 0.7119 and 0.7085 and 0.7134, respectively. The 87 Sr/ 86 Sr ranges in the Petra and Negev regions are rather similar, indicating that carbonate rocks from both local and remote sources have had a significant role. It may be inferred that the distinctive εNd values of the Petra eolian sediments must be generated from the local Paleozoic sandstone, even in the absence of information on the isotopic composition of any of the local rocks. Dust from the semi-distant Petra region, the remote Mesopotamia source area, and local sources all have an impact on Negev isotopic signals, but not the Sahara. This is because the significant contribution of coarse-grain local materials masks fine-grain materials from distant sources.
Sandler et al. (2026) studied this question.