Significance Over the last 12,000 y, humans have faced a variety of challenges from climatic variability, either leading to a wide range of technological, economic and cultural responses, or societal collapse. In southeastern Arabia, ancient droughts appear to have corresponded with the decline of inland occupations and population movements to resource-rich areas on the coast, with transformative societal effects. Data from northern Arabia suggest that Holocene populations responded to environmental challenges through high mobility, managing water sources, and transforming their economies. Though more interdisciplinary archaeological data remain to be gathered from Arabia, these examples illustrate diverse strategies to resilience and provide important lessons for a world in which climate predictions forecast dramatic changes in temperature and precipitation.