 Raqefet Cave entrance | |
  Location in Israel  Raqefet Cave (Israel) | |
| Location | Upper Galilee |
|---|---|
| Region | Israel |
| History | |
| Periods | Middle Paleolithic |
| Cultures | Mousterian, Levantine Aurignacian, Natufian |
Raqefet Cave (Cyclamen Cave) is a Late Natufian archaeological site located in Mount Carmel in the north of Israel. [1]
Raqefet Cave was discovered in 1956. The site indicates plants were already used as food here before the advent of agriculture. [1]
Remains in one of the chambers of the cave suggest the production of beer during the occupation of the cave. [2] [3] The earliest archaeological evidence of fermentation consists of 13,000-year-old residues of a beer with the consistency of gruel, used by the semi-nomadic Natufians for ritual feasting, at the Raqefet Cave. [4] [5]
Earlier levels at Raqefet include remains from the Levantine Aurignacian. [6] Earlier Mousterian remains were also found at Site 187. [7]
In 2020, incised slabs were discovered at Raqefet Cave, with a human figure most likely shown as dancing. [8]
The Epipalaeolithic Near East designates the Epipalaeolithic in the prehistory of the Near East. It is the period after the Upper Palaeolithic and before the Neolithic, between approximately 20,000 and 10,000 years Before Present (BP). The people of the Epipalaeolithic were nomadic hunter-gatherers who generally lived in small, seasonal camps rather than permanent villages. They made sophisticated stone tools using microliths—small, finely-produced blades that were hafted in wooden implements. These are the primary artifacts by which archaeologists recognise and classify Epipalaeolithic sites.
The Natufian culture is a Late Epipaleolithic archaeological culture of the Neolithic prehistoric Levant in Western Asia, dating to around 15,000 to 11,500 years ago. The culture was unusual in that it supported a sedentary or semi-sedentary population even before the introduction of agriculture. The Natufian communities may be the ancestors of the builders of the first Neolithic settlements of the region, which may have been the earliest in the world. Some evidence suggests deliberate cultivation of cereals, specifically rye, by the Natufian culture at Tell Abu Hureyra, the site of earliest evidence of agriculture in the world. The world's oldest known evidence of the production of bread-like foodstuff has been found at Shubayqa 1, a 14,400-year-old site in Jordan's northeastern desert, 4,000 years before the emergence of agriculture in Southwest Asia. In addition, the oldest known evidence of possible beer-brewing, dating to approximately 13,000 BP, was found in Raqefet Cave on Mount Carmel, although the beer-related residues may simply be a result of a spontaneous fermentation.
The Mousterian 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 latter part of the Middle Paleolithic, the middle of the West Eurasian Old Stone Age. It lasted roughly from 160,000 to 40,000 BP. If its predecessor, known as Levallois or Levallois-Mousterian, is included, the range is extended to as early as c. 300,000–200,000 BP. The main following period is the Aurignacian of Homo sapiens.
The archaeology of Israel is the study of the archaeology of the present-day Israel, stretching from prehistory through three millennia of documented history. The ancient Land of Israel was a geographical bridge between the political and cultural centers of Mesopotamia and Egypt.
The Allerød oscillation was a warm and moist global interstadial that occurred c.13,900 to 12,900 BP. It was preceded by the Older Dryas and followed by the Younger Dryas cold periods. The Allerød was nearly at the end of the Last Glacial Period. It raised temperatures in the northern Atlantic region to almost present-day levels, before they declined again in the Younger Dryas, which was followed by the present warm Holocene.
El Wad is an Epipalaeolithic archaeological site in Mount Carmel, Israel. The site has two components: El Wad Cave, also known as Mugharat el-Wad or HaNahal Cave ; and El Wad Terrace, located immediately outside the cave.
Kebara Cave is a limestone cave locality in Wadi Kebara, situated at 60 to 65 m above sea level on the western escarpment of the Carmel Range, in the Ramat HaNadiv preserve of Zichron Yaakov.
Ohalo II is an archaeological site in Northern Israel, near Kinneret, on the southwest shore of the Sea of Galilee. It is one of the best preserved hunter-gatherer archaeological sites of the Last Glacial Maximum, radiocarbon dated to around 23,000 BP (calibrated). It is at the junction of the Upper Paleolithic and the Epipaleolithic, and has been attributed to both periods. The site is significant for two findings which are the world's oldest: the earliest brushwood dwellings and evidence for the earliest small-scale plant cultivation, some 11,000 years before the onset of agriculture. The numerous fruit and cereal grain remains preserved in anaerobic conditions under silt and water are also exceedingly rare due to their general quick decomposition.
Neve David is an Epipalaeolithic archaeological site located at the foot of the western slope of the Mount Carmel hills in northern Israel. It was inhabited in the later part of the Middle Epipalaeolithic, about 15,000–13,000 BC.
Baruch Arensburg, professor of Anatomy, Sackler School of Medicine, Tel-Aviv University (emeritus), is a physical anthropologist whose main field of study has been prehistoric and historic populations of the Levant.
ʿAin Mallaha or Eynan was an Epipalaeolithic settlement belonging to the Natufian culture, occupied circa 14,326–12,180 cal. BP. The settlement is an example of hunter-gatherer sedentism, a crucial step in the transition from foraging to farming.
Al-Mazar was a Palestinian Arab village located 4 kilometers (2.5 mi) northeast of al-Sarafand. In 1945, it had a population of 210.
The Skhul and Qafzeh hominins or Qafzeh–Skhul early modern humans are hominin fossils discovered in Es-Skhul and Qafzeh caves in Israel. They are today classified as Homo sapiens, among the earliest of their species in Eurasia. Skhul Cave is on the slopes of Mount Carmel; Qafzeh Cave is a rockshelter near Nazareth in Lower Galilee.
Nahal Oren is an archaeological site on the northern bank of the wadi of Nahal Oren (Hebrew)/Wadi Fallah (Arabic) on Mount Carmel, 10 km (6.2 mi) south of Haifa, Israel. The site comprises a cave and the small terrace in front of it, which steeply descends towards the wadi floor. The site was first excavated in 1941. Kebaran, Natufian (Epipaleolithic) and Pre-Pottery Neolithic A and B industries were found.
Shuqba cave is an archaeological site near the town of Shuqba in the West Bank, in the Ramallah and al-Bireh Governorate.
Taforalt, or Grotte des Pigeons, is a cave in the province of Berkane, Aït Iznasen region, Morocco, possibly the oldest cemetery in North Africa. It contained at least 34 Iberomaurusian adolescent and adult human skeletons, as well as younger ones, from the Upper Palaeolithic between 15,100 and 14,000 calendar years ago. There is archaeological evidence for Iberomaurusian occupation at the site between 23,200 and 12,600 calendar years ago, as well as evidence for Aterian occupation as old as 85,000 years.
Qafzeh Cave, also known by other names, is a prehistoric archaeological site located at the bottom of Mount Precipice in the Jezreel Valley of Lower Galilee south of Nazareth. Important remains of prehistoric people were discovered on the site - some of the oldest examples in the world, outside of Africa, of virtually anatomically modern human beings. These were discovered on the ledge just outside the cave, where 18 layers from the Middle Paleolithic era were identified. The interior of the cave contains layers ranging from the Neolithic era to the Bronze Age.
Naama Goren-Inbar is an Israeli archaeologist and paleoanthropologist and professor emeritus at the Institute of Archaeology, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Goren-Inbar excavated many important prehistoric sites in Israel including the Acheulian site of Gesher Benot Ya’aqov. In 2014, she received the EMET Prize in Humanities and Judaism, and in 2016 was elected to the Israel Academy of Sciences.
Mordechai E. Kislev is an Israeli emeritus professor in the Mina and Everard Goodman Faculty of Life Sciences at Bar-Ilan University, specializing in archaeological botany. Some of his prominent research focuses on prehistoric early agriculture and archaeological entomology. Other works explore the ancient landscape of the Land of Israel, as well as Torah and Science issues.
Vicia palaestina, the Palestine vetch, is a species of flowering plant in the family Fabaceae. It is native to the eastern Mediterranean region; Greece, the Aegean Islands, Turkey, Cyprus, the Levant, Sinai, and Iraq. Carbonized remains of its seeds have been tentatively identified in Mousterian Neanderthal deposits in Kebara Cave, Mount Carmel, Israel. Unlike many species of vetch, its seeds are non-toxic, and are edible even when raw.
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