The Tabun Cave is an excavated site located at Nahal Me'arot Nature Reserve,

Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

and is one of the Human Evolution sites at

Mount Carmel Mount Carmel ( he, הַר הַכַּרְמֶל, Har haKarmel; ar, جبل الكرمل, Jabal al-Karmil), also known in Arabic as Mount Mar Elias ( ar, link=no, جبل مار إلياس, Jabal Mār Ilyās, lit=Mount Saint Elias/ Elijah), is a ...

, which were proclaimed as having universal value by

UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture. I ...

in 2012.

History

Together with the nearby sites of El Wad cave,

Jamal cave Jamal ( ar, جمال ''/'') is an Arabic masculine given name, meaning "beauty",Jamal
at BehindTheName.com and a surn ...

, and

Skhul cave Es-Skhul (es-Skhūl, ar, السخول; meaning ''kid'', ''young goat'') or the Skhul Cave is a prehistoric cave site situated about south of the city of Haifa, Israel, and about from the Mediterranean Sea. Together with the nearby sites of T ...

, Tabun is part of the Nahal Me'arot Nature Reserve, a national park and

UNESCO World Heritage Site A World Heritage Site is a landmark or area with legal protection by an international convention administered by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). World Heritage Sites are designated by UNESCO for ...

. The cave was occupied intermittently during the

Lower Lower may refer to: *Lower (surname) *Lower Township, New Jersey *Lower Receiver (firearms) *Lower Wick Gloucestershire, England See also *Nizhny Nizhny (russian: Ни́жний; masculine), Nizhnyaya (; feminine), or Nizhneye (russian: Ни́� ...

and

Middle Paleolithic The Middle Paleolithic (or Middle Palaeolithic) is the second subdivision of the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age as it is understood in Europe, Africa and Asia. The term Middle Stone Age is used as an equivalent or a synonym for the Middle Paleo ...

(500,000 to around 40,000 years ago). In the course of this period, deposits of

sand Sand is a granular material composed of finely divided mineral particles. Sand has various compositions but is defined by its grain size. Sand grains are smaller than gravel and coarser than silt. Sand can also refer to a soil texture, textur ...

silt Silt is granular material of a size between sand and clay and composed mostly of broken grains of quartz. Silt may occur as a soil (often mixed with sand or clay) or as sediment mixed in suspension with water. Silt usually has a floury feel wh ...

and

clay Clay is a type of fine-grained natural soil material containing clay minerals (hydrous aluminium phyllosilicates, e.g. kaolin, Al2 Si2 O5( OH)4). Clays develop plasticity when wet, due to a molecular film of water surrounding the clay part ...

of up to accumulated in the cave.

Excavations In archaeology, excavation is the exposure, processing and recording of archaeological remains. An excavation site or "dig" is the area being studied. These locations range from one to several areas at a time during a project and can be condu ...

suggest that it features one of the longest sequences of human occupation in the

Levant The Levant () is an approximation, approximate historical geography, historical geographical term referring to a large area in the Eastern Mediterranean region of Western Asia. In its narrowest sense, which is in use today in archaeology an ...

Dorothy Garrod Dorothy Annie Elizabeth Garrod, CBE, FBA (5 May 1892 – 18 December 1968) was an English archaeologist who specialised in the Palaeolithic period. She held the position of Disney Professor of Archaeology at the University of Cambridge from ...

led excavations in 1929 over 22 months that established the sequence of occupation of this and other sites in the area. It was during these excavations that a woman, Yusra, recruited from a local village, was credited with the discovery of the Tabun 1 Neanderthal skull.

Deposits

The earliest and lowest deposits in the cave contain large amounts of sea sand. This, and

pollen Pollen is a powdery substance produced by seed plants. It consists of pollen grains (highly reduced microgametophytes), which produce male gametes (sperm cells). Pollen grains have a hard coat made of sporopollenin that protects the gametop ...

traces found, suggests a relatively warm climate at the time. The melting

glacier A glacier (; ) is a persistent body of dense ice that is constantly moving under its own weight. A glacier forms where the accumulation of snow exceeds its ablation over many years, often centuries. It acquires distinguishing features, such a ...

s which covered large parts of the globe caused the sea level to rise and the

Mediterranean The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on th ...

coastline to recede. The Coastal Plain was then narrower than it is today, and was covered with

savannah A savanna or savannah is a mixed woodland-grassland (i.e. grassy woodland) ecosystem characterised by the trees being sufficiently widely spaced so that the canopy does not close. The open canopy allows sufficient light to reach the ground to ...

vegetation. The cave dwellers of that time used

handaxe A hand axe (or handaxe or Acheulean hand axe) is a prehistoric stone tool with two faces that is the longest-used tool in human history, yet there is no academic consensus on what they were used for. It is made from stone, usually flint or che ...

s of

flint Flint, occasionally flintstone, is a sedimentary cryptocrystalline form of the mineral quartz, categorized as the variety of chert that occurs in chalk or marly limestone. Flint was widely used historically to make stone tools and sta ...

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 wh ...

for killing animals (

gazelle A gazelle is one of many antelope species in the genus ''Gazella'' . This article also deals with the seven species included in two further genera, ''Eudorcas'' and '' Nanger'', which were formerly considered subgenera of ''Gazella''. A third ...

hippopotamus The hippopotamus ( ; : hippopotamuses or hippopotami; ''Hippopotamus amphibius''), also called the hippo, common hippopotamus, or river hippopotamus, is a large semiaquatic mammal native to sub-Saharan Africa. It is one of only two exta ...

rhinoceros A rhinoceros (; ; ), commonly abbreviated to rhino, is a member of any of the five extant taxon, extant species (or numerous extinct species) of odd-toed ungulates in the family (biology), family Rhinocerotidae. (It can also refer to a member ...

and wild

cattle Cattle (''Bos taurus'') are large, domesticated, cloven-hooved, herbivores. They are a prominent modern member of the subfamily Bovinae and the most widespread species of the genus '' Bos''. Adult females are referred to as cows and adult ...

which roamed the Coastal Plain) and for digging out plant roots. As tools improved slowly over time, the hand axes became smaller and better shaped, and scrapers made of thick flakes chipped off flint cores were probably used for scraping meat off bones and for processing animal skins. The upper levels in the Tabun cave consist mainly of

and

, indicating that a colder, more humid climate prevailed as glaciers formed once more; this change yielded a wider coastal strip, covered by dense

forest A forest is an area of land dominated by trees. Hundreds of definitions of forest are used throughout the world, incorporating factors such as tree density, tree height, land use, legal standing, and ecological function. The United Nations' ...

s and swamps. The material remains from the upper strata of the cave are of the

Mousterian The Mousterian (or Mode III) is an archaeological industry of stone tools, associated primarily with the Neanderthals in Europe, and to the earliest anatomically modern humans in North Africa and West Asia. The Mousterian largely defines the ...

culture (about 200,000 - 45,000 years ago). Small

tools made of thin flakes predominate these levels, many produced using the

Levallois technique The Levallois technique () is a name given by archaeologists to a distinctive type of stone knapping developed around 250,000 to 300,000 years ago during the Middle Palaeolithic period. It is part of the Mousterian stone tool industry, and wa ...

. Tools typical of the

culture feature elongated points, and include flakes of various shapes used as scrapers, end scrapers and other

denticulate tool In archaeology, a denticulate tool is a stone tool containing one or more edges that are worked into multiple notched shapes (or teeth), much like the toothed edge of a saw. Such tools have been used as saws for woodworking, processing meat an ...

s used for cutting and sawing. Arthur Jelinek's 1967 to 1972 excavations of the cave yielded over 1,900 complete and partial bifaces. The bulk of the

biface A hand axe (or handaxe or Acheulean hand axe) is a prehistoric stone tool with two faces that is the longest-used tool in human history, yet there is no academic consensus on what they were used for. It is made from stone, usually flint or che ...

assemblage can be attributed to the Late

Acheulian Acheulean (; also Acheulian and Mode II), from the French ''acheuléen'' after the type site of Saint-Acheul, is an archaeological industry of stone tool manufacture characterized by the distinctive oval and pear-shaped "hand axes" associate ...

and

Yabrudian The Acheulo-Yabrudian complex is a complex of archaeological cultures in the Levant at the end of the Lower Palaeolithic. It follows the Acheulian and precedes the Mousterian. It is also called the Mugharan Tradition or the Acheulo-Yabrudian Cultur ...

industries. The large number of

fallow deer ''Dama'' is a genus of deer in the subfamily Cervinae, commonly referred to as fallow deer. Name The name fallow is derived from the deer's pale brown colour. The Latin word ''dāma'' or ''damma'', used for roe deer, gazelles A gazelle ...

bones found in the upper layers of the Tabun cave may be due to the chimney-like opening in the back of the cave which functioned as a natural trap. The animals may have been herded towards it, and fell into the cave where they were butchered. Several fossils were discovered at Tabun cave, including a nearly complete female skeleton (Tabun C1) and a mandible (Tabun C2). The taxonomic attributions of the two fossils are still discussed. Archaeologists also discovered 350,000-year-old cobble at the Tabun cave, which was used by hominids for abrading surfaces.

Gallery

File:Homo Neanderthalensis Tabun 1 Mount Carmel Israel About 1200,000-50,000 BP.jpg, Homo Neanderthalensis, Tabun 1, Mount Carmel, Israel About 120,000–50,000 BP (replica) File:Handaxes Israel Tabun 1934-12-15 tray.jpg, Five

hand axe A hand axe (or handaxe or Acheulean hand axe) is a prehistoric stone tool with two faces that is the longest-used tool in human history, yet there is no academic consensus on what they were used for. It is made from stone, usually flint or che ...

s, excavated 1929-1934,

British Museum The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docume ...

File:Production of points & spearheads from a flint stone core, Levallois technique, Mousterian Culture, Tabun Cave, 250,000-50,000 BP (detail).jpg, Production of points & spearheads from a flint stone core,

Mousterian culture The Mousterian (or Mode III) is an archaeological industry of stone tools, associated primarily with the Neanderthals in Europe, and to the earliest anatomically modern humans in North Africa and West Asia. The Mousterian largely defines the lat ...

, Tabun cave, 250,000–50,000 BP

References

External links

Image of Tabun 1 skull at Modern Human Origins
{{Authority control 1967 archaeological discoveries Archaeological sites in Israel Prehistoric sites in Israel Neanderthal sites Caves of Israel World Heritage Sites in Israel Mousterian Mount Carmel