The use of carinated items in the Levantine Aurignacian-Insights from layer D, Hayonim Cave, W. Galilee, Israel.

A longstanding debate concerns the function of carinated elements in both, the Levantine, and European Aurignacian. The present study aims to contribute to this topic with the evaluation of the carinated assemblage from layer D in Hayonim Cave, Western Galilee, Israel, one of the type sites of the Levantine Aurignacian. An operational chain reconstruction with an attribute analysis is paired with a typological approach to the preparation and maintenance products based on artefacts defined as West European Aurignacian.

Al-Ansab and the Dead Sea: Mid-MIS 3 archaeology and environment of the early Ahmarian population of the Levantine corridor.

Our field data from the Upper Palaeolithic site of Al-Ansab 1 (Jordan) and from a pollen sequence in the Dead Sea elucidate the role that changing Steppe landscapes played in facilitating anatomically modern human populations to enter a major expansion and consolidation phase, known as the "Early Ahmarian", several millennia subsequent to their initial Marine Isotope Stage 4/3 migration from Africa, into the Middle East. The Early Ahmarian techno-cultural unit covers a time range between 45 ka-37 ka BP. With so far more than 50 sites found, the Early Ahmarian is the first fully Upper Palaeolithic techno-cultural unit exclusively and undisputedly related to anatomically modern human populations.