The oldest occupations at Kebara Cave are thought to be associated with the Middle Paleolithic Aurignacian and Mousterian traditions, and range between 60,000 and 48,000 years ago. These oldest levels yielded thousands of animal bone--primarily mountain gazelle and Persian fallow deer--much with cutmarks, burned bones, hearths, ash lenses and lithic artifacts leading researchers to believe Kebara Cave was a long-term occupied base camp for its Neanderthal residents. Also identified in the MP layers of Kebara cave was a nearly complete skeleton of a Neanderthal.
Natufian at Kebara Cave
The Natufian component, dated between 11,000 and 12,000 years old, includes a large communal burial pit, with a selection of a large number of sickle blades, lunates, mortars and pestles. Skeletal remains, recently subjected to investigation the site included a burial pit, in which 17 people (11 children and six adults) were buried sequentially, such as that identified at the site of El-Wad. One of the individuals, a mature male, has a stone lunate embedded in his vertabra, and it is apparent that the individual did not live long after his injury. Of the other five individuals buried in the cemetery at Kebara Cave, two exhibit evidence of violence as well.Sources
Since its discovery in the 1920s, Kebara Cave has been extensively investigated. Here are a few of the most recent reports of investigations.Bocquentin, Fanny and Ofer Bar-Yosef 2004 Early Natufian remains: evidence for physical conflict from Mt. Carmel, Israel. Journal of Human Evolution 47:19-23.
Lev, Efraim//Kislev, Mordechai E.//Bar-Yosef, Ofer. 2005. Mousterian vegetal food in Kebara Cave, Mt. Carmel. Journal of Archaeological Science 32:475-484.
Speth, John D. and Eitan Tchernov. 2002. Middle Paleolithic tortoise use at Kebara Cave (Israel). Journal of Archaeological Science 29:471-483.
