Abstract
Age-estimates ranging from 50 to 70 ky were obtained for the Mousterian deposits of Amud Cave in Israel from thermoluminescence measurements performed on 19 burnt flints. The late dates obtained for the stratigraphic layers bearing hominid remains confirm the evidence for the late presence of Neanderthals in the Levant. The dates enable a more effective comparison of the lithic assemblages from Amud Cave with those of other contemporaneous sites and underline the variability within Mousterian lithic industries at the end of the Middle Palaeolithic in the Levant.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 259-268 |
| Number of pages | 10 |
| Journal | Journal of Archaeological Science |
| Volume | 26 |
| Issue number | 3 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Mar 1999 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:Field work at Amud Cave was supported by the L.S.B. Leakey Foundation, CARE Archaeological Foundation, the Institute of Human Origins, and the Institute of Archaeology at the Hebrew University. Figure 1 was computer-generated by Guy Hivroni. The authors thank Aren Maeir for identifying the pottery sherds and are grateful to Ofer Bar-Yosef, Anna Belfer-Cohen, Paul Goldberg and Liliane Meignen, as well as two anonymous reviewers, for their comments on previous drafts of this paper. We are also grateful to Mario Chech for his assistance.
Keywords
- Amud
- Dating
- Mousterian
- Neanderthal
- Thermoluminescence