Qesem Cave's stone tool assemblage has is not unlike those tools found at the Upper Herto Member at Bouri in Ethiopia, one of the earliest Early Modern Human sites in Africa. Acheulian handaxes and a whole slew of blades and shaped blades called "Amudian industry" were recovered from Qesem.
Also at Qesem is evidence of butchery. Animal bone preservation at Qesem is pretty good, and the evidence includes fallow deer, auroch, horse, wild pig, tortoise and red deer. The fallow deer are particularly abundant, and the researchers believe, based on the bone assemblage, that the deer were butchered in the field, and only select cuts were brought home to the cave to be further butchered and consumed.
These sorts of behaviors--planned hunting, blade construction--are rudimentary elements of what scholars call "behavioral modernity": the first steps to becoming a modern human.
Today, as of January 2011, Qesem cave and the other sites of the transitional Lower to Middle Paleolithic period are not universally accepted as EMH. Neanderthals also exhibited behaviors such as hunting and butchering and making blades, and evidence of their occupation of the Levant has been documented during this period. In the end, whether over the 200,000 years of its use the Qesem Cave was occupied by Neanderthal or EMH or both, the site is still an important one to understanding human occupation of the Levant.
Sources
Hershkovitz I, Smith P, Sarig R, Quam R, Rodríguez L, García R, Arsuaga JL, Barkai R, and Gopher A. 2010. Middle pleistocene dental remains from Qesem Cave (Israel). American Journal of Physical Anthropology:n/a-n/a.
See the Bibliography for additional sources.
- Qesem Cave, Israel
- Guide to the Middle Paleolithic
- Guide to the Acheulo-Yabrudian Cultural Complex
- Guide to the Lower Paleolithic
- Guide to Neanderthals
- Early Modern Humans
See the Qesem Cave Project pages for additional information
