Ammon – New research has revealed that the inhabitants of the southern Arabian Peninsula in ancient times ate one of the most prominent marine predators – sharks.

According to a report published by Fox News, the study, which was recently published in the journal Antiquity, focuses on a cemetery in Wadi Nafun, an archaeological site in the Sultanate of Oman dating back to the fifth millennium BC.

A press release issued in January by the Archaeological Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences (ARUP) in Prague said that the megalithic cemetery provides “the most detailed evidence to date about the diet and movement of Neolithic societies in the region.”

Archaeologists have worked at the site since 2020, in an arid climate that has preserved very little organic remains.

Accordingly, they collected tooth samples and subjected them to analysis in the Czech Republic.

Anthropologist Jiri Schneeberger said the team used stable isotope analysis to reconstruct the diet of ancient populations — which, according to the statement, indicated they likely ate shark meat.

He added: “Based on the preliminary results of the stable isotope analysis used to reconstruct the diet, we suggest that the populations we studied may have relied on shark meat as one of their main sources of food and nutrition.”

Algbieta Danielisova, archaeologist at ARUP and leader of the expedition, said that this study is the first of its kind.

“For the first time ever, we were able to document specialized hunting of marine predators based on data from the natural sciences, directly through analysis of the buried local community,” Danielisova said.

She added: “The association of this buried group with sharks is very interesting, and represents a new discovery – not only for the prehistory of the Arabian Peninsula, but for all Neolithic cultures in arid regions.” “We know that these were not just ordinary proteins, but proteins from the top of the food chain,” she said.

Officials believe the study has international implications, while research into the site – and the teeth found there – is still ongoing.

The researchers said the findings so far are evidence of a “highly flexible and adaptive subsistence strategy – combining hunting, gathering, herding, and the systematic exploitation of marine resources.”

The statement added, “The results show, on a global scale, how humans have adapted to a wide range of environmental and climatic conditions.”

He continued: “It also confirms that Wadi Nafun functioned for more than three centuries as a central ritual site that united different groups throughout the region.”