The Ḥarrat al-Shām, also known as the Harrat al-Harra or Harrat al-Shaba, and colloquially as the Black Desert in English, is a region of rocky, basaltic desert straddling southern Syrian region and the northern Arabian Peninsula. It covers an area of some 40000 km2 in the modern-day Syrian Arab Republic, Jordan, Israel and Saudi Arabia. Vegetation is characteristically open acacia shrubland with patches of juniper at higher altitudes. The Harrat has been occupied by humans since at least the Late Epipalaeolithic (c. 12,500–9500 BCE). One of the earliest known sites is Shubayqa 1 (occupied c. 12,600–10,000 BCE), a Natufian site where archaeologists have discovered the remains of the oldest known bread.

Geology

The Harrat comprises volcanic fields formed by tectonic activity from the Oligocene through to the Quaternary. It is the largest of several volcanic fields on the Arabian Plate, containing more than 800 volcanic cones and around 140 dikes. Activity began during the Miocene; an earlier eruptive stage at the southeastern end of the volcanic field, occurred during the late Pleistocene and the Holocene. It is known to have erupted in historic times. The Jabal al-Druze, al-Safa and Dirat al-Tulul volcanic fields, among others, form the northern and Syrian part of the ḥarra. The Saudi Arabian portion of the Harrat Ash Shamah volcanic field extends across a 210 km-long, roughly 75 km-wide northwest-southeast-trending area on the northeastern flanks of the Wadi Sirhan and reaches its 1100 m high point at Jabal al-Amud. It is in the Tabuk Province of northwest Saudi Arabia. and is one of a series of Quaternary volcanic fields paralleling the Red Sea coast.

Archaeological sites

Jordan