Tabun Cave

Tabun Cave

Tabun Cave
location in Israel
Location	Mount Carmel, Nahal Me'arot Nature Reserve
Region	Israel
Coordinates	32°40′13.80″N 34°57′55.80″E / 32.6705000°N 34.9655000°E / 32.6705000; 34.9655000Coordinates: 32°40′13.80″N 34°57′55.80″E / 32.6705000°N 34.9655000°E / 32.6705000; 34.9655000
History
Periods	Lower Paleolithic and Middle Paleolithic
Cultures	Mousterian
Associated with	Neanderthal
Site notes
Excavation dates	1929, 1967
Archaeologists	Arthur Jelinek

The Tabun Cave is an excavated site located at Nahal Me'arot Nature Reserve, Israel and is one of Human Evolution sites at Mount Carmel, which were proclaimed as having universal value by UNESCO in 2012. The cave was occupied intermittently during the Lower and Middle Paleolithic (500,000 to around 40,000 years ago). In the course of this period, deposits of sand, silt and clay of up to 25 m (82 ft) accumulated in the cave. Excavations suggest that it features one of the longest sequences of human occupation in the Levant.

The earliest and lowest deposits in the cave contain large amounts of sea sand. This, and pollen traces found, suggests a relatively warm climate at the time. The melting glaciers which covered large parts of the globe caused the sea level to rise and the Mediterranean coastline to recede. The Coastal Plain was then narrower than it is today, and was covered with savannah vegetation. The cave dwellers of that time used handaxes of flint or limestone for killing animals (gazelle, hippopotamus, rhinoceros and wild cattle 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.