In search of modern humans and the Early Upper Paleolithic at Manot Cave: An overview

Omry Barzilai; Ofer Marder; Israel Hershkovitz

doi:10.1016/j.jhevol.2021.102965

In search of modern humans and the Early Upper Paleolithic at Manot Cave: An overview

Omry Barzilai
, Ofer Marder
, Israel Hershkovitz

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

7 Scopus citations

Abstract

Manot Cave is a unique relict karst cave located in the western Galilee, north-western Israel. The cave was inhabited from the Late Middle Paleolithic through the Early Upper Paleolithic (EUP) periods until its main entrance collapsed, ca. 30 ka. The cave consists of an elongated main hall and two side chambers. The topography of the main hall consists of a steep talus inclining from the original entrance of the cave to the center, a plane area at the lowermost point of the main hall, and a smaller talus inclining from the eastern end of the cave. Nine field seasons (2010–2018) have been conducted so far at the cave. The excavations revealed dense accumulations of EUP deposits near the cave entrance (areas E and I), at the center (area D), at the base of the western talus (area C), and in the plane area (area A). This introductory article describes the cave and its characteristics and provides a background for various contributions in the special issue, devoted to Manot Cave.

Original language	English
Article number	102965
Journal	Journal of Human Evolution
Volume	160
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhevol.2021.102965
State	Published - Nov 2021
Externally published	Yes

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 Elsevier Ltd

Funding

The Manot Cave excavations are supported by the Dan David foundation , the Israel Science Foundation (grant no. 338/14 ; 999/18 ; 2632/18 ), the Binational Science Foundation , Israel and United States (grant no. 2015303 ), Case Western Reserve University , the Irene Levi-Sala CARE Foundation , and the Leaky Foundation . This manuscript summarizes an article presented by the authors at the 82nd Society for American Archaeology meeting held at Vancouver, Canada in 2017. The Manot Cave project is indebted to the generous support of the David family. We extend our thanks to the late Dan David, who was a great supporter of prehistoric archeology and human evolution studies. Special thanks are extended to Ariel David, who has continued to support the project with great enthusiasm. We thank the Israel Antiquities Authority for their tremendous efforts to make this project feasible, in particular the late director Shuka Dorfman and the Northern Region Office namely Zach Horwitz, Eliezer Stern, Yoav Lerer, and Dror Barshad. We are deeply indebted to the colleagues and the Manot Cave staff members who have invested their precious time and have made an invaluable contribution to the success of the project: Talia Abulafia, Bridget Alex, Hila Ashkenazy, Avner Ayalon, Guy Bar-Oz, Mira Bar-Matthews, Daniella Bar-Yosef Mayer, Reuma Ben Lulu, Francesco Berna, Elisabetta Boaretto, Valentina Caracuta, Lauren Davis, Lotan Edeltin, Amos Frumkin, Mae Goder-Goldberger, Hagay Hamer, Mark G. Hans, Gadi Herzlinger, Boaz Langford, Bruce Latimer, Ron Lavi, Hila May, Yvonne McDermott, Meir Orbach, Hannah Parow-Souchon, Rachel Sarig, Roi Shavit, Nehora Schneller-Pels, Mayan Shemer, Ifat Shapira, Viviane Slone, Jos?-Miguel Tejero, Mika Ullman, Gal Yas'ur, Stephen Weiner, Dimitri Yegorov, Reuven Yeshurun, and Alon Ziv-ner. We thank our colleagues who contributed to the studies of Manot Cave, which are presented in the special issue. Last, but not least, we thank Noga Reuven who has been a host and a dear friend to the Manot expedition in the last decade. The Manot Cave excavations are supported by the Dan David foundation, the Israel Science Foundation (grant no. 338/14; 999/18; 2632/18), the Binational Science Foundation, Israel and United States (grant no. 2015303), Case Western Reserve University, the Irene Levi-Sala CARE Foundation, and the Leaky Foundation. This manuscript summarizes an article presented by the authors at the 82nd Society for American Archaeology meeting held at Vancouver, Canada in 2017.

Funders	Funder number
CARE Foundation
Israel Antiquities Authority
United States - Israel Binational Science Foundation	2015303
Case Western Reserve University
Leaky Foundation
Dan David Prize
Israel Science Foundation	2632/18, 338/14, 999/18

Keywords

Early Upper paleolithic
Manot cave
Modern humans
Paleoenvironment

Access to Document

10.1016/j.jhevol.2021.102965

Cite this

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title = "In search of modern humans and the Early Upper Paleolithic at Manot Cave: An overview",

abstract = "Manot Cave is a unique relict karst cave located in the western Galilee, north-western Israel. The cave was inhabited from the Late Middle Paleolithic through the Early Upper Paleolithic (EUP) periods until its main entrance collapsed, ca. 30 ka. The cave consists of an elongated main hall and two side chambers. The topography of the main hall consists of a steep talus inclining from the original entrance of the cave to the center, a plane area at the lowermost point of the main hall, and a smaller talus inclining from the eastern end of the cave. Nine field seasons (2010–2018) have been conducted so far at the cave. The excavations revealed dense accumulations of EUP deposits near the cave entrance (areas E and I), at the center (area D), at the base of the western talus (area C), and in the plane area (area A). This introductory article describes the cave and its characteristics and provides a background for various contributions in the special issue, devoted to Manot Cave.",

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In search of modern humans and the Early Upper Paleolithic at Manot Cave: An overview

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Funding

Keywords

Access to Document

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