The impact of southeast Arabian intra‐regional trade on settlement location and organization during the Iron Age II period

The impact of camel domestication on the location and organisation of settlements dating between 1000 and 600 BC in southeastern Arabia is discussed. It is argued that the ability to transport goods across regions that were hitherto inaccessible encouraged settlement growth in previously unsettled areas. Furthermore, access to elite goods such as painted ceramics, iron and incense provided the impetus for the emergence of new forms of political economy. This is highlighted by distributional and compositional analysis of imported materials from the Iron Age II site of Muweilah.