The last Ice Age made much of the globe uninhabitable, but there were oases - or refugia - where people 20,000 years ago were able to cluster and survive.
Researchers at the University of Huddersfield in the UK, who specialise in the analysis of human DNA, have found new evidence that there was one or more of these shelters in what is now Southern Arabia.
The view used to be that people did not settle in large numbers in Arabia until the development of agriculture, around 10-11,000 years ago.
Now, the findings by members of the University of Huddersfield's Archaeogenetics Research Group demonstrate that modern humans have dwelt in this territory for far longer than previously thought.
The new genetic data and analysis bolsters a theory that has long been held by archaeologists, although they had little evidence to support it until now.
Researchers have reached the conclusion that this lineage is more ancient than previously thought and that it has a deeper presence in Arabia than was earlier believed.
This makes the case for at least one glacial refugium during the Pleistocene period, which spanned the Ice Age.
The study also describes the dispersals during the postglacial period, around 11,000 years ago, of people from Arabia into eastern Africa.
The study was published in the journal Scientific Reports.
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