Geological setting and age of the Middle Paleolithic site of Nahal Mahanayeem Outlet (Upper Jordan Valley, Israel)

Kalbe, Johannes; Sharon, Gonen; Porat, Naomi; Zhang, Chengjun; Mischke, Steffen

doi:10.1016/j.quaint.2013.05.052

Cited by 21 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 35 publications

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“…Less than 1 km NE of Gesher Benot Ya'aqov is a Middle Palaeolithic (Mousterian) site within a fluvio-lacustrine context in the Jordan valley as it extends through the Hula Basin. This is the site at Nahal Mahanayeem Outlet, on the eastern bank of the River Jordan at its southern exit from the Hula Valley, although when the main occupation level was active (~65 ka: OSL) this was a short-term hunting location at the shore of the palaeo-Lake Hula, according to the interpretation of recent research there (Kalbe et al, 2014(Kalbe et al, , 2015Sharon and Oron, 2014). The site has yielded a small assemblage of flint artefacts along with well-preserved animal bones and other fossils.…”

Section: Fluvial Archives Of the Palaeolithic In Israelmentioning

confidence: 97%

Fluvial deposits as an archive of early human activity: Progress during the 20 years of the Fluvial Archives Group

Chauhan

Bridgland

Moncel

et al. 2017

Quaternary Science Reviews

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Fluvial sedimentary archives are important repositories for Lower and Middle Palaeolithic artefacts throughout the 'Old World', especially in Europe, where the beginning of their study coincided with the realisation that early humans were of great antiquity. Now that many river terrace sequences can be reliably dated and correlated with the globally valid marine isotope record, potentially useful patterns can be recognized in the distribution of the find-spots of the artefacts that constitute the large collections that were assembled during the years of manual gravel extraction. This paper reviews the advances during the past two decades in knowledge of hominin occupation based on artefact occurrences in fluvial contexts, in Europe, Asia and Africa. As such it is an update of a comparable review in 2007, at the end of IGCP Project no. 449, which had instigated the compilation of fluvial records from around the world during 2000e2004, under the auspices of the Fluvial Archives Group. An overarching finding is the confirmation of the well-established view that in Europe there is a demarcation between handaxe making in the west and flakeecore industries in the east, although on a wider scale that pattern is undermined by the increased numbers of Lower Palaeolithic bifaces now recognized in East Asia. It is also apparent that, although it seems to have appeared at different places and at different times in the later Lower Palaeolithic, the arrival of Levallois technology as a global phenomenon was similarly timed across the area occupied by Middle Pleistocene hominins, at around 0.3 Ma.

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Section: Fluvial Archives Of the Palaeolithic In Israelmentioning

confidence: 97%

Fluvial deposits as an archive of early human activity: Progress during the 20 years of the Fluvial Archives Group

Chauhan

Bridgland

Moncel

et al. 2017

Quaternary Science Reviews

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“…Yellen 1977;Gould and Saggers 1985;O'Connell 1987;Brooks 1996;David and Kramer 2001). In recent years, a relatively large number of Middle Palaeolithic open-air sites have been discovered and investigated in the Levant (Hovers et al 2008Cordova et al 2011;Ames et al 2014;Kalbe et al 2014;Sharon and Oron, 2014;Zaidner et al 2014Zaidner et al , 2016; and see Hovers, 2017 for summary). Such sites need to be thoroughly investigated to attain a more complete understanding of Middle Palaeolithic decisions regarding settlement patterns, subsistence strategies and technological organisation (Hovers and Belfer-Cohen 2013).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Geoarchaeological Investigation of Site Formation and Depositional Environments at the Middle Palaeolithic Open-Air Site of ‘Ein Qashish, Israel

et al. 2018

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'Ein Qashish is a Middle Palaeolithic open-air site in the southern Levant, encompassing an excavated area of several hundred square meters and a 4.5-m thick stratigraphic section. Its placement within a fluvial system, combined with the presence of Neanderthal skeletal remains and diverse material culture finds, presents possibilities J Paleo Arch (2018) Palaeolithic. The aim of this study is to investigate the depositional and post-depositional processes at 'Ein Qashish, based on the stratigraphic section exposed in the 2013 excavation season. We employed field observations, sedimentology, micromorphology, mineralogy, elemental and isotopic analyses. Our results indicate that the sedimentary sequence, including four archaeological occupation levels, accumulated in a generally low-energy alluvial environment with evidence for syn-depositional localised seasonal water bodies. On-going post-depositional processes related to wetting and drying cycles include shrink-swell and calcite and gypsum pedofeatures. Bone mineral is relatively well preserved. The data suggest limited fluvial and argilliturbation reworking of artefacts, indicating that spatial patterning of lithic and bone assemblages is rather well preserved in some areas. The current analyses do not indicate the presence of combustion features or fire-related residues at the site, although burned lithics occur in low frequencies. The absence of combustion features in the large excavated area and deep stratigraphy contrasts with patterns observed in Middle Palaeolithic cave occupations in the region, adding nuance to a dataset that will enable a better understanding of human activities under sheltered and open-air conditions.

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“…The site was discovered in 1999 during a drainage operation. The excavations exposed an open-air site dated to the middle Paleolithic, based on the lithic assemblage ascribed to the Mousterian tradition (Sharon et al, 2010; Kalbe et al, 2014, 2015; Sharon and Oron, 2014). The primary archaeological horizon within the Ashmura Formation yielded optically stimulated luminescence ages of a late Pleistocene age between 65 and 55 ka (Fig.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Pleistocene amphibians and squamates from the Upper Jordan Rift Valley, Gesher Benot Ya’aqov and Nahal Mahanayeem Outlet (MIS 20–18 and MIS 4/3)

et al. 2018

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The Acheulian site of Gesher Benot Ya’aqov (GBY) and the Mousterian site of Nahal Mahanayeem Outlet (NMO) are open-air sites situated on the bank of the Upper Jordan River at its southern estuary in the Hula Valley, Israel. Both sites were deposited on the shore of a paleo-Lake Hula, a shallow body of water that persisted throughout a considerable part of the Pleistocene as a fresh-water lake. Most of the amphibian and squamate taxa recovered are aquatic species related to the natural biota of the Hula Valley, alongside some terrestrial species. Twelve amphibian and squamate taxa were recovered at each site. Most of the species recovered from the archaeological contexts do not differ from extant Hula Valley amphibians and squamates, with the exception of a varanid (Varanus sp.) recovered at GBY and the possible presence of the eastern fourlined ratsnake (cf. Elaphe sauromates). The snake’s presence could indicate slightly cooler conditions during human occupation at NMO. A noteworthy continuity in species presence is observed throughout the many archaeological horizons as well as in comparison to the current Hula basin fauna. This suggests a surprising similarity in environmental conditions over a significant portion of the Quaternary in this region.

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Geological setting and age of the Middle Paleolithic site of Nahal Mahanayeem Outlet (Upper Jordan Valley, Israel)

Cited by 21 publications

References 35 publications

Fluvial deposits as an archive of early human activity: Progress during the 20 years of the Fluvial Archives Group

Fluvial deposits as an archive of early human activity: Progress during the 20 years of the Fluvial Archives Group

Geoarchaeological Investigation of Site Formation and Depositional Environments at the Middle Palaeolithic Open-Air Site of ‘Ein Qashish, Israel

Pleistocene amphibians and squamates from the Upper Jordan Rift Valley, Gesher Benot Ya’aqov and Nahal Mahanayeem Outlet (MIS 20–18 and MIS 4/3)

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