Neolithic natural pearl of Marawah
Perla natural neolítica de Marawah
- Date
- c. 5800 BCE · confidence medium
- Place
- Marawah Island, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
- Credited to
- Neolithic coastal communities of the Gulf
- Field
- Cosmos & Earth
What was discovered
The oldest known pearl, found at a Neolithic site on Marawah Island, shows that coastal Gulf communities were collecting pearl oysters as early as the sixth millennium BC. It marks the origin of one of the Gulf's longest-lived economic activities.
Neolithic pearls have also been found at Umm al-Quwain (UAE), c. 5500 BC. The Marawah pearl was announced in 2017; it demonstrates gathering and use, not trade at that date.
What it led to
- pearl diving as the Gulf's economic base until 20th-century cultured pearls
- pearl trade with Mesopotamia and the Indus valley from the Bronze Age
- the maritime tradition of Gulf peoples