Qafzeh

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Qafzeh

BW

Location: Israel
Geographic
location: 		32 ° 40 ′ 49.8 "  N , 35 ° 17 ′ 44.6"  E Coordinates: 32 ° 40 ′ 49.8 "  N , 35 ° 17 ′ 44.6"  E
Qafzeh (Israel)
Qafzeh
Particularities: fossil Homo sapiens finds

Qafzeh (also Kafzeh, Qafzah; dt. Abyss) is a cave on the southern outskirts of Nazareth ( Israel ). It is located on the Abyssal Mountain ( Arab. Ǧebel el-Qafze; Eng. Mount Precipice ) on the eastern steep slope of the Wādi el-Haǧǧ ( Hebrew. Naḥal Mizra). The cave became known as a Paleolithic site primarily because of its fossils of early anatomically modern humans ( Homo sapiens ). It contained deposits of the Middle Paleolithic ( Moustérien ) and the transition to the Upper Paleolithic . The archaeologically relevant find layers have been completely excavated.

Research history

The first excavations were carried out by René Neuville , the Chancellor at the French Consulate General in Jerusalem . After the first trial excavations in 1933, he began in 1934 together with Moshe Stekelis , later professor of prehistory at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, with systematic excavations with funds from the Institut de paleontologie humaine in Paris and the Prince Albert of Monaco Foundation . During these excavations, the skeletons of five individuals (fossil no. Q1-Q5) were discovered in the Levallois strata, which were brought to the Institut de paleontologie humaine in Paris.

In 1965–1979, the French archaeologist Bernard Vandermeersch carried out further excavations with the support of the CNRS . As early as 1965, further fragmentary human remains were found in the Mousterién layers with the fossil no. Q6-Q8 found. In 1967 the almost complete skeletons of an adult woman (Q9) and a child (Q10) were discovered. In 1971 a young man was buried in a pit (Q11). He was lying on his back, legs crouched on his sides, hands on either side of his neck. The excavator interprets antlers near the hands as grave goods .

stratigraphy

The sequence of layers was marked with the letters AM. The upper layers contained a Byzantine floor and a wall. Originally the cave is said to have also contained an altar carved into the rock.

  • Layer D: Upper Paleolithic (Neuville Stage III).
  • Layer E (4 m thick): Moustérien. Contains Levallois kernels (turtle kernels), disc kernels , large quantities of elongated mousteria tips and scrapers as well as blades, prismatic blade cores and knives of the Chatelperron type ( back knives ) and Emirah tips .
  • Layer L: Moustérien with hominid remains

Dating

H. Valladas from the Laboratoire des faibles radioactivités in Gif-sur-Yvette carried out a thermoluminescence dating of burnt silices from the Mousterién layers. They showed an age of 92,000 ± 5000 BP (Valladas et al. 1988). An electron spin resonance -Datierung (ESR) gave 130000-90000 a BP.

Fossil finds

skull

So far, the remains of at least 13 individuals have been found, along with a Moustérien industry (Levallois type), seven adults (No. 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 25) and nine teenagers (No. 4, 10 , 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 21, 22), as well as individual bones and teeth. Individual 13 is a child who suffered from hydrocephalus. The fossils Qafzeh 1 and 2 are from the Upper Paleolithic , all other hominine fossils are from the Middle Paleolithic .

Because of their age and some anatomical features, it was initially considered by some researchers that some individuals could be hybrids of Neanderthals and Homo sapiens . Theodore D. McCown and Arthur Keith (1939) named the remains from Qafzeh and Skhul "Palaeoanthropus palestinus". Francis Clark Howell (1957) wanted them classified as "Proto-Cro Magnons"; other researchers also interpret the remains as anatomically modern. In his doctoral thesis and in its publication as a technical book in 1981, Bernard Vandermeersch then described the fossils as belonging to a uniform population and as belonging without a doubt to modern humans, while at the same time pointing out that the skull finds were very similar to those from the Skhul cave.

environment

The moustéry layers contained hunting remains of red deer, fallow deer and aurochs. and the remains of seashells ( Glycimeris insubrica ), which came from a distance of about 40 km; some of these shells show traces of ocher . The conspicuous accumulation of about 120,000 year old mussel shells with boreholes, which were probably created naturally by snails, was interpreted as an indication that these drilled shells were intentionally intended for "symbolic purposes" (as jewelry in the form of chains). Further research was carried out on microfauna. Land snails ( Levantina ) and river pearl mussels ( Unio ) also originate from the layers of the Upper Paleolithic .

literature

  • Ofer Bar-Yosef, Bernard Vandermeersch: Notes Concerning the possible Age of the Mousterian Layers in Quafzeh Cave. In: Jacques Cauvin, Paul Sanlaville (eds.): Préhistoire du Levant. Chronologie et organization de l'espace depuis les origines jusqu'au VI e Millénaire. Paris, Editions du Center National de la Recherche Scientifique, 1981, pp. 281-285
  • Daniella E. Bar-Yosef Mayer, Bernard Vandermeersch, Ofer Bar-Yosef : Shells and ocher in Middle Palaeolithic Qafzeh Cave, Israel: indications for modern behavior. Journal of Human Evolution 56/3, 2009, 307-314.
  • David S. Brose, Milford H. Wolpoff : Early Upper Paleolithic Man and Late Middle Paleolithic Tools. In: American Anthropologist , New Series 73/5, 1971, pp. 1156-1194.
  • René Neuville : Le paléolithique et le mésolithique du désert de Judée. 1951
  • Nicolas Rolland, Harold L. Dibble : A New Synthesis of Middle Paleolithic Variability. In: American Antiquity. 55/3, 1990, 480-499.
  • Anne-Marie Tillier: Les Enfants Mousteriens de Qafzeh: Interpretation Phylogenetique et Paleoauxologique. Paris: CNRS Editions, 1999
  • Anne-Marie Tillier, Baruch Arensburg, Henri Duday, Bernard Vandermeersch: Brief communication: An early case of hydrocephalus: The Middle Paleolithic Qafzeh 12 child (Israel) (2000)
  • Bernard Vandermeersch: Nouvelles découvertes de restes humains dans les couches Levalloiso-Moustériennes du gisement de Quafzeh (Israel). In: Comptes Rendus de l'Academie des Sciences, Series D. 262, 1966, pp. 1434-1436.
  • Bernard Vandermeersch: The excavation of Qafzeh. Its contribution to knowledge of the Mousterian in the Levant . Bulletin du Center de recherche français de Jérusalem 10/2, 2002, 65–70. [1]

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Bernard Vandermeersch: The excavation of Qafzeh, its contribution to knowledge of the Mousterian in the Levant. Bulletin du Center de recherche français de Jérusalem 10/2, 2002, 65
  2. ^ Ofer Bar-Yosef, Bernard Vandermeersch: Premiers hommes modern et Néandertaliens au Proche-Orient: chronologie et culture. In: Jean-Jacques Hublin , AM Tillier (ed.): Aux origines d'Homo sapiens. Paris, PUF 1991, 217-250.
  3. ↑ Schwarcz, HP, Grün, R., Vandermeersch, B., Bar-Yosef, O. , Valladas, H., Tchernov, E .: ESR dates for the hominid burial site of Qafzeh in Israel. In: Journal of Human Evolution , Volume 17, 1988, pp. 733-737; Valladas, H., Reyss, JL, Joron, JL, Valladas, G., Bar-Yosef, O., Vandermeersch, B .: Thermoluminescence dating of Mousterian 'Proto-cro-magnon' remains from Israel and the origin of modern man . In: Nature , Volume 331, 1988, pp. 614-616.
  4. ^ David S. Brose, Milford H. Wolpoff : Early Upper Paleolithic Man and Late Middle Paleolithic Tools. In: American Anthropologist , New Series 73/5, 1971, 1181
  5. ^ Daniella E. Bar-Yosef Mayer, Bernard Vandermeersch, Ofer Bar-Yosef: Shells and ocher in Middle Paleolithic Qafzeh Cave, Israel: indications for modern behavior. In: Journal of Human Evolution , Volume 56, No. 3, 2009, 308
  6. ^ Anne-Marie Tillier, Baruch Arensburg, Henri Duday, Bernard Vandermeersch: Brief communication: An early case of hydrocephalus: The Middle Palaeolithic Qafzeh 12 child (Israel). In: American Journal of Physical Anthropology , Volume 114, No. 2, 2001, pp. 166-70, doi : 10.1002 / 1096-8644 (200102) 114: 2 <166 :: AID-AJPA1017> 3.0.CO; 2- 3
  7. ^ Bernard Vandermeersch: Les hommes fossiles de Qafzeh (Israël). Thèse de Doctorat, Université Pierre-et-Marie-Curie (Paris VI), June 1977 ( Bibliographical note )
  8. ^ Bernard Vandermeersch: Les hommes fossiles de Qafzeh (Israël). Editions du CNRS, Paris 1981
  9. ^ R. Rabinovich, O. Bar-Yosef, B. Vandermeersch, LK Horwitz: Hominid-carnivore interactions in the Palaeolithic site of Qafzeh Cave, Israel. In: Paléobiology. Volume 23, 2004, pp. 627-637.
  10. ^ Daniella E. Bar-Yosef Mayer, Bernard Vandermeersch, Ofer Bar-Yosef: Shells and ocher in Middle Paleolithic Qafzeh Cave, Israel: indications for modern behavior. In: Journal of Human Evolution. Volume 56, No. 3, 2009, p. 310, doi: 10.1016 / j.jhevol.2008.10.005 .
  11. ^ Daniella E. Bar-Yosef Mayer et al .: On holes and strings: Earliest displays of human adornment in the Middle Palaeolithic. In: PLoS ONE. 15 (7), 2020, e0234924, doi: 10.1371 / journal.pone.0234924 .
  12. ↑ G. Haas: The Micro Fauna of Djebel Qafze Cave. In: Palaeovertebrata , Vol. 5, No. 5, 1972, pp. 261-270
  13. ↑ M. Avnimelech: Sur les mollusques trouveés dans les couches préhistoriques et protohistoriques de Palestine. In: Journal of the Palestine Oriental Society. Volume 17, 1937, pp. 81-92.