Eli Dollarhide
Humanities Research Fellow
Affiliation: NYU Abu Dhabi
Education: BA, The College of William and Mary; MA, NYU; PhD, NYU
Research Areas: Arabian archaeology; prehistoric Middle East; ancient landscapes; the origins of urbanism; cultural ecology; ceramics analysis
Project: Beyond the Oasis
About Eli
Eli Dollarhide is an archaeologist and anthropologist who specializes in the prehistory of the Gulf region and the broader Middle East. He received his PhD in Anthropology from NYU in 2019 and is currently Research Fellow in the Humanities Research Fellowship for the Study of the Arab World at NYU Abu Dhabi. His research investigates the role of small and rural settlements in the development of Bronze Age exchange networks and political systems.
Dollarhide co-directs archaeological research at the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Bat, Oman, which is home to one of the world’s most complete collections of tombs and settlements from the 3rd millennium BC. His research uses artifacts, architecture, and environmental data to reconstruct Bronze Age patterns of exchange within southeastern Arabia and across the ancient Middle East. He previously directed a National Geographic Society-sponsored archaeological survey around Bat that resulted in the discovery of over 400 sites. Dollarhide's research has also been supported by grants from the British Foundation for the Study of the Arabia, the Digital Globe Foundation, and the Center for the Study of Human Origins at NYU. His interests include the social construction of landscape, geospatial techniques in archaeology, the analysis of ancient ceramics, and the development of urbanism in the Middle East. At NYUAD, he is continuing excavations in Oman, studying the production and exchange of southeastern Arabia's earliest pottery through thin-section petrography, and completing a book on the Bat landscape.
Publications
Journals
Dollarhide, E.N., et al. Results from Beyond the Oasis: Excavations of the 2022–23 Field Season of the Bat Archaeological Project. Journal of Oman Studies Volume 24 (2024) (in press).
Jennifer Swerida, Eli Dollarhide and Reilly Jensen. "Settlement and Chronology in the early Bronze Age of Southeastern Arabia." Paléorient 47, no. 2 (2021): 75-96.
Harrower, M. J., Nathan, S., Dumitru, I.A., Lehner, J.W., Dollarhide, E., Paulsen, P., Wiig, F., et al., “From the Paleolithic to the Islamic Era in Wilayah Yanqul: The Archaeological Water Histories of Oman (ArWHO) Project Survey 2011-2018.” Journal of Oman Studies 22 (2021): 1-21.
J. Swerida, C. Cable and Eli Dollarhide. "Survey and Settlement: Preliminary Results of The Bat Archaeological Project's 2019 Field Season." Journal of Oman Studies 21 (2020): 82-101.
Dollarhide, Eli. "Mapping Magan: Hundreds of Newly Discovered Tombs in Southeastern Arabia." Newsletter of the Archaeological Institute of America-New York Society (2018): 4-5.
A.J. Sivitskis, M.J. Harrower, H. David-Cuny, I.A. Dumitru, S. Nathan, F. Wiig, D.R. Viete, K.W. Lewis, A.K. Taylor, Eli Dollarhide et al. "Hyperspectral Sattelite Imagery Detection of Ancient Raw Material Sources: Soft-Stone Vessel Production at Agir Al-Shamoos (Oman)." Archaeological Prospection 25, no. 4 (2018): 363-374.
Dollarhide, Eli. "Finding interregional interaction: Traces of Persian Gulf exchange in Bronze Age Oman." Proceedings of the International Archaeologists’ Congress at Tehran University (2017) (*under review)
Book Chapters
Lehner, J.W.; I. Dumitru; A. Buffington; E. Dollarhide; et al. “Iron Age Copper Metallurgy in Southeast Arabia: A Comparative Perspective.” In “And in Length of Days Understanding” (Job 12:12). Interdisciplinary Contributions to Archaeology, edited by E. Ben-Yosef, and I.W.N. Jones. Springer, 2023.
Dollarhide, Eli. "Revealing the local: A look inwards at the archaeology of Southeastern Arabia." In Confronting Early Urbanism's Unseen Dynamics, edited by A. Green, P. Crabtree, and S. Patel. Cambridge University Press (*in prep)
Interview
“Mapping Magan: The Ancient Social Landscape of Northern Oman”
In the News
Even 5,000 years ago, people living in ancient southeastern Arabia were using and controlling their environments in creative ways.
Tomb discoveries reveal Oman's ancient trade route from coast to interior
Grave sites discovered in Ad Dhahirah governorate are revealing new information about the past.
The National | July 7, 2021