Kebara Cave ( he, מערת כבארה, Me'arat Kebbara, ar, مغارة الكبارة, Mugharat al-Kabara) is a

limestone Limestone ( calcium carbonate ) is a type of carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of . Limestone forms wh ...

cave A cave or cavern is a natural void in the ground, specifically a space large enough for a human to enter. Caves often form by the weathering of rock and often extend deep underground. The word ''cave'' can refer to smaller openings such as sea ...

locality in Wadi Kebara, situated at above sea level on the western escarpment of the Carmel Range, in the

Ramat HaNadiv Ramat Hanadiv ( he, רמת הנדיב, ''Heights of the Benefactor''), is a nature park and garden in northern Israel, covering at the southern end of Mount Carmel between Zikhron Ya'akov to the north and Binyamina to the south. The Jewish Nat ...

preserve of Zichron Yaakov.

History

The cave was inhabited between 60,000 and 48,000 BP and is famous for its excavated finds of

hominid The Hominidae (), whose members are known as the great apes or hominids (), are a taxonomic family of primates that includes eight extant species in four genera: '' Pongo'' (the Bornean, Sumatran and Tapanuli orangutan); ''Gorilla'' (the east ...

remains. Dorothy Garrod and Francis Turville-Petre excavated in the cave in the early 1930s. Excavations have since yielded a large number of human remains associated with a Mousterian archaeological context. The first specimen discovered in 1965, during the excavations of M. Stekelis, was an incomplete infant skeleton (Kebara 1).New human remains from Kebara Cave (Mount Carmel
/ref> The most significant discovery made at Kebara Cave was Kebara 2 in 1982, the most complete postcranial Neanderthal

skeleton A skeleton is the structural frame that supports the body of an animal. There are several types of skeletons, including the exoskeleton, which is the stable outer shell of an organism, the endoskeleton, which forms the support structure inside ...

found to date. Nicknamed "Moshe" and dating to ''circa'' 60,000 BP, the skeleton preserved a large part of one individual's torso (

vertebral column The vertebral column, also known as the backbone or spine, is part of the axial skeleton. The vertebral column is the defining characteristic of a vertebrate in which the notochord (a flexible rod of uniform composition) found in all chordate ...

rib In vertebrate anatomy, ribs ( la, costae) are the long curved bones which form the rib cage, part of the axial skeleton. In most tetrapods, ribs surround the chest, enabling the lungs to expand and thus facilitate breathing by expanding the ches ...

s and

pelvis The pelvis (plural pelves or pelvises) is the lower part of the trunk, between the abdomen and the thighs (sometimes also called pelvic region), together with its embedded skeleton (sometimes also called bony pelvis, or pelvic skeleton). The ...

). The

cranium The skull is a bone protective cavity for the brain. The skull is composed of four types of bone i.e., cranial bones, facial bones, ear ossicles and hyoid bone. However two parts are more prominent: the cranium and the mandible. In humans, ...

and most of the lower limbs were missing. The

hyoid bone The hyoid bone (lingual bone or tongue-bone) () is a horseshoe-shaped bone situated in the anterior midline of the neck between the chin and the thyroid cartilage. At rest, it lies between the base of the mandible and the third cervical vertebr ...

was also preserved, and was the first Neanderthal hyoid bone found. Mithen, S.(2006). The Singing Neanderthals: The origins of music, language, mind, and body. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. The

Kebaran culture The Kebaran culture, also known as the Early Near East Epipalaeolithic, was an archaeological culture in the Eastern Mediterranean area (c. 23,000 to 15,000 BP), named after its type site, Kebara Cave south of Haifa. The Kebaran were a highly mob ...

is named after the site.

References

External links

Ramat Hanadiv
- the Rothschild Memorial public gardens at

preserve the Kebara Cave within their boundaries for visitors
Kebara Cave
at About.com {{DEFAULTSORT:Kebara 1930s archaeological discoveries Caves of Israel Neanderthal sites Prehistoric sites in Israel Archaeological type sites Mount Carmel Mousterian Kebaran culture

History

See also

References

Further reading

External links