Kebara Cave ( he, מערת כבארה, Me'arat Kebbara, ar, مغارة الكبارة, Mugharat al-Kabara) is a

limestone Limestone ( calcium carbonate ) is a type of carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of . Limestone forms w ...

cave A cave or cavern is a natural void in the ground, specifically a space large enough for a human to enter. Caves often form by the weathering of rock and often extend deep underground. The word ''cave'' can refer to smaller openings such as sea ...

locality in Wadi Kebara, situated at

above sea level Height above mean sea level is a measure of the vertical distance ( height, elevation or altitude) of a location in reference to a historic mean sea level taken as a vertical datum. In geodesy, it is formalized as '' orthometric heights''. Th ...

on the western

escarpment An escarpment is a steep slope or long cliff that forms as a result of faulting or erosion and separates two relatively level areas having different elevations. The terms ''scarp'' and ''scarp face'' are often used interchangeably with ''esca ...

of the Carmel Range, in the

Ramat HaNadiv Ramat Hanadiv ( he, רמת הנדיב, ''Heights of the Benefactor''), is a nature park and garden in northern Israel, covering at the southern end of Mount Carmel between Zikhron Ya'akov to the north and Binyamina to the south. The Jewish Nation ...

preserve of

Zichron Yaakov Zikhron Ya'akov ( he, זִכְרוֹן יַעֲקֹב, ''lit.'' "Jacob's Memorial"; often shortened to just ''Zikhron'') is a town in Israel, south of Haifa, and part of the Haifa District. It is located at the southern end of the Carmel mounta ...

History

The cave was inhabited between 60,000 and 48,000 BP and is famous for its excavated finds of hominid remains. Dorothy Garrod and Francis Turville-Petre excavated in the cave in the early 1930s. Excavations have since yielded a large number of human remains associated with a Mousterian archaeological context. The first specimen discovered in 1965, during the excavations of M. Stekelis, was an incomplete infant skeleton (Kebara 1).New human remains from Kebara Cave (Mount Carmel
/ref> The most significant discovery made at Kebara Cave was Kebara 2 in 1982, the most complete postcranial

Neanderthal Neanderthals (, also ''Homo neanderthalensis'' and erroneously ''Homo sapiens neanderthalensis''), also written as Neandertals, are an Extinction, extinct species or subspecies of archaic humans who lived in Eurasia until about 40,000 years ag ...

skeleton found to date. Nicknamed "Moshe" and dating to ''circa'' 60,000 BP, the skeleton preserved a large part of one individual's torso ( vertebral column,

rib In vertebrate anatomy, ribs ( la, costae) are the long curved bones which form the rib cage, part of the axial skeleton. In most tetrapods, ribs surround the chest, enabling the lungs to expand and thus facilitate breathing by expanding the ches ...

s and pelvis). The cranium and most of the lower limbs were missing. The hyoid bone was also preserved, and was the first Neanderthal hyoid bone found. Mithen, S.(2006). The Singing Neanderthals: The origins of music, language, mind, and body. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. The Kebaran culture is named after the site.

References

External links

Ramat Hanadiv
- the Rothschild Memorial public gardens at

preserve the Kebara Cave within their boundaries for visitors
Kebara Cave
at About.com {{DEFAULTSORT:Kebara 1930s archaeological discoveries Caves of Israel Neanderthal sites Prehistoric sites in Israel Archaeological type sites Mount Carmel Mousterian Kebaran culture

History

See also

References

Further reading

External links