Prof. Pierre Zalloua

Arabia has not been studied extensively archaeologically.

It's now been, you know, I would say over the last maybe five to seven years where a lot of activities have been going on and Al Ula as a site.

But it's much later than this Al Ula.

We're talking the Nabataean.

And this is much recent.

So we know more about this.

And frankly, what I know about this is much more

than the 7,000.

So I couldn't tell much about, you know, prior to these people who actually lived in Arabia.

We still don't know.

Yes, I think one of the most important things to note here is we believe a lot of things happened in that region.

really the first communities that existed were in the Euphrates, in Mesopotamia, right?

And I mean, we're not too far.

Yes, the fertile crescent, exactly.

So the first communities, the first cities, the first real populations, as we call them, populations actually started there.

So this region has been continuously populated over the last 7,000 years.

which makes it a fascinating region.

So when you approach and you wanna study this region, you have to look at this massive shifts of populations and cultures.

And you say, how am I going to decipher all of this by looking at modern DNA today?

And it's really, it's a puzzle, it's a huge puzzle.