New Data on the Origin of Modern Man in the Levant

by 0. BAR-YOSEF, B. VANDERMEERSCH, B. ARENSBURG, P. GOLDBERG, H. LAVILLE, L. MEIGNEN, Y. RAK, E. TCHERNOV, and A. -M. TILLIER Institute of Archaeology, Mt. Scopus, Hebrew University, Jerusalem 91905, Israel (Bar-Yosef, Goldberg)ILaboratoire d'Anthropologie, Universite de Bordeaux I, 33405 Talence, France (Vandermeersch)/Department of Anatomy and Anthropology, Sackler School of Medicine, Tel-Aviv University, Ramat Aviv 69978, Israel (Arensburg, Rak)lInstitut de Quaternaire, Universite de Bordeaux I, 33405 Talence, France (Laville)/Centre de Recherches Archeologiques, Sophia Antipolis, 06565 Valbonne, France (Meignen)/Department of Zoology, Hebrew University, Jerusalem 91904, Israel (Tchernov)/Laboratoire de Paleontologie des Vertebres, Universite de Paris VI, 4 Place Jussieu, 75006 Paris, France (Tillier). 5 iv 85 The origin of modern man in the Near East has been a controversial subject since the discoveries of human remains by Garrod, McCown, and Neuville in the caves of Tabuin, Skhtul, and Qafzeh, respectively (Garrod and Bate 1937, McCown and Keith 1939, Neuville 1951). Recent excavations at Tabuin (1967-72) by Jelinek (1982a) and at Qafzeh (1965-1979) by Vandermeersch (1981) refocused attention on this issue. The new excavations at Tabuin provided a detailed stratigraphy for the Mousterian sequence and some portion of the earlier deposits. This enabled Farrand (1979) to suggest a reconstruction of the paleoenvironmental events that were responsible for the accumulation of this remarkably thick (ca. 20 m) sequence. One of the key interpretations was the correlation of the lowermost part of the sandy sequence (which contained Acheulian and "Acheulo-Yabrudian" assemblages recently named the Mugharan tradition by Jelinek) with the Last Interglacial, or Isotope Stage 5. On the basis of this suggestion, Jelinek (1981, 1982a, b) plotted the results of his metrical ithic analysis, which showed a gradual decrease in the thickness of the flakes that accelerated markedly between the Early and Late Mousterian. Consequently, Jelinek suggested "an orderly and continuous progression of industries . paralleled by a morphological progression from Neanderthal to modern man" (Jelinek 1982a: 1374). At Qafzeh, originally excavated by Neuville and M. Stekelis (1933-35) and recently by Vandermeersch (1965-79), the large collection of skeletal remains emanating from the lower portion of the Mousterian sequence has been assigned to Homo sapiens sapiens (Vandermeersch 1981). The age of these deposits remains controversial (Bar-Yosef and Vandermeersch 1981). Paleontological analyses of the microvertebrates by Tchernov (1981) indicate close affinities of the levels that contained the burials with the Upper Acheulian levels of Oumm-Qatafa (Neuville 1951, Haas in Neuville 1951, Tchernov 1968) and greater similarity to Tabuin D than to Tabuin C and B. These levels have been ascribed to a single biozone that Tchernov calls the "Lower Mousterian. " Preliminary micromorphological analyses at Qafzeh yield the same conclusion (Goldberg 1980). At Hayonim Cave (western Galilee), the transition from the "Lower Mousterian" to the "Upper Mousterian" is also documented (Tchernov 1981). Jelinek (1982a) rejects the