The shell middens of Las Bela coast and the Indus delta (Arabian Sea, Pakistan)

The surveys carried out along the coast of Las Bela (Balochistan) and the Indus delta (Sindh), have shown that these two regions were inhabited since the end of the eighth millennium BP. The discovery of shell middens along the shores of Daun Bay and Lake Siranda (Las Bela), have radically changed our view of the prehistory of this territory. The surveys conducted in the Indus delta have revealed that all the rocky outcrops rising from the alluvium are covered with chipped stone artefacts and marine and mangrove shells, which were radiocarbon dated between the seventh and fourth millennium BP, showing that all the outcrops above were islands at least until Hellenistic times. The radiocarbon results obtained from a few shell samples indicate that some of these islands had already been settled at the beginning of the seventh millennium BP, suggesting that seafaring was already practised along the northern Arabian Sea coast at least since the beginning of the Neolithic.