Amud Cave is located in the

Upper Galilee The Upper Galilee ( he, הגליל העליון, ''HaGalil Ha'Elyon''; ar, الجليل الأعلى, ''Al Jaleel Al A'alaa'') is a geographical-political term in use since the end of the Second Temple period. It originally referred to a mountai ...

, in the

Nahal Amud Nahal Amud ( he, נחל עמוד), also known as the Wadi al-Amud, is a stream in the Upper Galilee region of Israel that flows into the Sea of Galilee. History The source of the stream, Ramat Dalton, is located 800 meters above sea level. Its d ...

gorge. It is situated about above

, right next to and above the famous pillar (amud, in

Hebrew Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...

) for which Nahal Amud is named. The cave was excavated by a Japanese expedition in 1961 and, again, in 1964. Excavations were renewed in 1990 by a joint Israeli-American team that included archaeologists, anatomists and anthropologists. Two major phases of occupation have been identified on the site: the later one beginning at around 3000 BC, characterized by numerous

pottery sherds This page is a glossary of archaeology, the study of the human past from material remains. A B C D E F ...

stone tool A stone tool is, in the most general sense, any tool made either partially or entirely out of stone. Although stone tool-dependent societies and cultures still exist today, most stone tools are associated with prehistoric (particularly Stone Ag ...

s and garbage pits (that often disturb lower

layers Layer or layered may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media * ''Layers'' (Kungs album) * ''Layers'' (Les McCann album) * ''Layers'' (Royce da 5'9" album) *"Layers", the title track of Royce da 5'9"'s sixth studio album *Layer, a female Maveric ...

) but no permanent structures, and an earlier one from the

Middle Paleolithic The Middle Paleolithic (or Middle Palaeolithic) is the second subdivision of the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age as it is understood in Europe, Africa and Asia. The term Middle Stone Age is used as an equivalent or a synonym for the Middle Paleoli ...

. The most important find from this site is

Amud 1 Amud 1 is a nearly complete but poorly preserved adult Southwest Asian Neanderthal skeleton thought to be about 55,000 years old. It was discovered at Amud in Israel by Hisashi Suzuki in July 1961, who described it as male. With an estimated h ...

, discovered in 1961, in the latest Paleolithic layers, that were later dated, using

thermoluminescence Thermoluminescence is a form of luminescence that is exhibited by certain crystalline materials, such as some minerals, when previously absorbed energy from electromagnetic radiation or other ionizing radiation is re-emitted as light upon he ...

, to 50-60,000 years BP. It has been classified as

Neanderthal Neanderthals (, also ''Homo neanderthalensis'' and erroneously ''Homo sapiens neanderthalensis''), also written as Neandertals, are an extinct species or subspecies of archaic humans who lived in Eurasia until about 40,000 years ago. While th ...

, which makes it the youngest Neanderthal ever to have been discovered in the

Levant The Levant () is an approximate historical geographical term referring to a large area in the Eastern Mediterranean region of Western Asia. In its narrowest sense, which is in use today in archaeology and other cultural contexts, it is eq ...

References

{{Authority control Caves of Israel Archaeology of Israel Prehistoric Israel Archaeological sites in Israel 1961 archaeological discoveries Asian archaeology Upper Galilee Neanderthal sites

Further reading

References