Middle Paleolithic Large-Mammal Hunting in the Southern Levant

Abstract

I examine the ungulate remains from late Middle Paleolithic (MP) Kebara Cave (Israel) and offer evidence pointing to overhunting by Levantine Neanderthals toward the close of the MP: (1) the frequency of red deer and aurochs declined over the course of the sequence, largely independent of major fluctuations in the Levantine speleothem climate record; (2) the proportion of juvenile gazelles and fallow deer increased in the younger levels, as did the proportion of young adults; (3) upward in the sequence, hunters brought back fewer gazelle and fallow deer heads, suggesting that they either had to travel farther to hunt, or that they took many more animals per trip, perhaps in cooperative kills. Taken together, these observations, in conjunction with evidence from other sites in the region, suggest that the resource intensification characteristic of the “Broad Spectrum Revolution” (BSR), may already have begun in the latter part of the MP.