The "Upper Paleolithic" of South Arabia

The practice of assigning names to archaeological periods in Arabia is inherently problematic. Just as the Arabian subcontinent is the geographic bridge between Africa and Eurasia; similarly, it is wedged between the bifurcation of Eurasian and African taxonomic schema. This distinction represents separate evolutionary trajectories as expressed in the development of regional lithic technologies. For instance, if we refer to the Arabian "Middle Paleolithic" (MP), we are using a Eurasian name and insinuating closer affinities to this part of the world between 250 and 40 ka, whereas the Arabian "Middle Stone Age" (MSA) presumes a connection to sub- Saharan Africa during a similar interval. This distinction is critical for evaluating the origin and expansion of early modern humans, which predicts linked stone tool technologies on either side of the Red Sea during the Middle and/or Late Stone Age (LSA).