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2010-09-28 12:25:05   •   ID: 1004

Ein Avdat: Elongated Levallois Point with broken tip

Figure 1
Ein Avdat in the Avdat/Aqev Area is a spectacular narrow canyon in the Negev, south of the Sdeh Boker Kibbutz.

At the opening of the canyon the water of numerous springs descends into two deep pools in a series of waterfalls. First Middle Paleolithic Ensembles above this area were found during the 1970ies and 80ies by A.E. Marks and coworkers.

The broken Levallois point (6,5 cm long) comes from a small Middle Paleolithic surface collection from the Ein Avdat area (former Collection of Professor Levenstein). The point with an extensively facetted platform, seen in Figure 2, fits well into the scientific context of Marks findings at the nearby Rosh Ein Mor and resembles similar items from there (shown in Goder Goldberger 2020).

Figure 2
The site of Rosh Ein Mor, is located at the western rim of the Nachal Mor cliff, at 500 m elevation, immediately above the Spring of Ein Avdat.

The site was detected by Marks et al. in 1969 by a large surface scatter of Middle Paleolithic tools. The site was not a simply a deflated surface concentration, but showed a clear in-situ pattering.

With more than 44000 artifacts Rosh Ein Mor is one of the largest open-air Middle Paleolithic sites in the Levant and a cornerstone for the Southern Levantine Middle Paleolithic chrono-stratigraphy.

Of major interest was the detection of two nearby sites, Boker Tachtit and Boker, assigned to the IUP and EUP Paleolithic respectively.

Figure 3
Figure 3 shows a view of Ein Avdat taken near Midreshet Ben-Gurion (Wikimedia Commons).

Lithics from Rosh Ein Mor are characterized by a trend toward the production of elongated blanks, through both Levallois and true volumetric core reduction (Marks & Monigal, 1995).

Regarding retouched tools, a high proportion of Upper Paleolithic types as compared to Middle Paleolithic types is present.

Technologically a broad spectrum of different Levallois modes has been identified at Rosh Ein Mor, different from the more monotonous convergent unipolar method with minimal striking platform preparation from typical Tabun-D ensembles.

Therefore the Rosh Ein Mor Ensemble does not really fulfill the definition to the early Middle Paleolithic / Tabun D- Paleolithic of the Levant, as earlier suggested.

Initial C-14 dating gave an age > 50 k.a. Paleoenvironmental data showed, that the site was used during a cool and moist period in an open grassland environment.

A 230Th/234U burial age of c 200 k.a. was reported in 2002, but remained controversial.

Recently U-series for dating calcite crusts on the artifacts, gave an age around the MIS4/3 boundary and therefore to a late Middle Paleolithic.

The site of Rosh Ein Mor is constantly used as a cultural marker for the presence of "Tabun D" type industries in the Negev. A re-analysis of the lithic assemblage shows that the techno-typological characteristics fit better within the late Middle Paleolithic variability than within the early Middle Paleolithic. Using the powerful tool of U-series for dating calcite crusts on the artifacts a cluster of dates between ~70-35 ka has been obtained.

Taking into consideration the central Negev highlands paleoclimate record and the geomorphological setting, this study presents valid data to suggest that Rosh Ein Mor was occupied during MIS 4 and possibly into MIS 3
(Mae Goder-Goldberger 2019).

Maybe the technological system from the site could be used as one "forerunner" for the technological innovations of the IUP and EUP of the nearby Boker Tachtit 4 and Boker sites.

This is supported by new data from the nearby late Middle Paleolithic site of Far‘ah II with a lithic inventory similar to Rosh Ein Mor (M Goder-Goldberger 2020). This locality is about 50 k.a. old.

All these new data point to an autochthonous gradual shift in the Negev from the late MP to the IUP, as already sugested by A Marks decenia ago.

Provenance: Collection Levenstein (ISR)