[1][5] Because its deep deposits contain an assemblage that has been dated to 125,000 years ago, the site was thought to contain the world's most ancient settlement yet discovered of anatomically modern humans outside of Africa at the time of its publication in 2011.

Excavations at Jebel Faya were first conducted between 2003 and 2010 by Simon J. Armitage, Sabah A. Jasim, Anthony E. Marks, Adrian G. Parker, Vitaly I. Usik, and Hans-Peter Uerpmann.

[10] Jebel Faya is a limestone mountain outlier in the Central Region of the Emirate of Sharjah, measuring about 10 and 20 km (6.2 and 12.4 miles) long.

It has a 5 m (16 ft) deep stratified sequence of archaeological levels, containing deposits from the Bronze and Iron Ages, the Neolithic, and the Paleolithic.

[1][9] Paleolithic occupations at Jebel Faya have been linked to humid periods in southern Arabia, in which freshwater availability and vegetation cover of the area would have increased and supported human subsistence.

[11] Additional studies of alluvial fan records[12] and relic lake deposits[13] in the region have supported this theory that humid periods may have offered multiple opportunities for human dispersal in southern Arabia.

This claim is based on excavations at Jwalapuram in India by Petraglia et al., who argue that assemblages found in pre- and post-Toba eruption layers indicate the continuous presence of AMH.

[17] For Petraglia and his colleagues, the presence of AMH at Jebel Faya 125,000 years ago could be evidence of an early dispersal route out of Africa, which humans could have followed to south Asia.

[1] However, this conclusion has been questioned due to genetic evidence of a more rapid dispersal of AMH out of Africa, meaning the Paleolithic assemblages may be the products of unrelated populations.