Researchers are studying skeletons in the UAE to find out how climate change affected humans in the Bronze Age

Bronze Age skeletons in the UAE may harbor climate change clues: Archaeologists from the UAE’s Ras Al Khaimah Department of Antiquities and Museums are partnering with researchers from US-based Quinnipiac University and the University of South Alabama for an archaeological study aimed at examining the impacts of climate change on human biology, Wam reports.

What are they doing exactly? The students are studying the bio-archaeological potential of ancient skeletons found in Ras Al Khaimah in an effort to map out the effects of a historic drought some 4k years ago to understand how climate change affected communities in southeast-Arabia. The study is focusing particularly on human settlements dwelling in the Umm Al Nur and Wadi regions of the UAE and Oman, Wam notes.

Why Ras Al Khaimah? The region is particularly fertile ground for the study of the impacts of climate change given the abundance of large communal tombs, which will enable the researchers to examine the effects of a prolonged drought — nearly a century long in this case, Ullinger is quoted by Wam as saying. His team has already gathered a wealth of intel to be examined, he notes, adding that they have seen “bones from the smallest babies to older individuals,” enabling them to study climate-induced changes in health over time and potentially pinpoint correlations between climate change, infant mortality, and a host of diseases.