Examination of the complete assemblage of pointed artefacts from the short-term kill-butchering site of Nahal Mahanayeem Outlet (NMO), Upper Jordan River, enabled the first holistic reconstruction of big-game procurement during the Late Middle Paleolithic in the Levant. The detailed analysis of diagnostic impact fractures (DIF) observed on the artefacts, in conjunction with their morpho-metric characteristics, indicates a predominant use of low velocity weapons such as thrusting and throwing spears (javelins). Reconstruction of NMO hunting techniques was based upon these results in combination with the site landscape features, faunal remains, and ethnographic record. The particularities of spear use recorded for modern hunter-gatherers may explain the relatively low frequency of DIF observed on pointed artefacts from the NMO assemblage and shed light on their techno-typological diversity. The study exemplifies the advantage of combined analysis of projectile damage and morpho-metric characteristics of the points.

A SLAM-based Zeb Horizon LiDAR system is used for high-resolution 3D mapping of Har Sifsof Cave (HSC) in the Upper Galilee, northern Israel. Located within a dense karst province, HSC is a subterranean system featuring a composite morphology, the result of prolonged aging processes of a large hypogenic chamber. With a total length of 518 m, it is one of the largest caves in the Galilee district. The cave contains diverse archeological remains from the early fifth millennium BCE associated with ritual activities. In the current project the scanned point cloud contains over 884 million measured points, captured in two days along 10 scanning routes. One scan was conducted by a drone recording surface topography above the cave, and nine scans were conducted manually, carrying the scanner through the cave, with an average of 1850 points per m², and measurement accuracy of 10 cm. We address the cave 3D documentation strategy and methods in the context of site formation process and spatial distribution of archeological deposits. The study shows that by the fifth millennium BCE the subterranean system already assumed its present configuration, indicating that ancient human activity in the cave involved overcoming multiple environmental obstacles and hazards. In tandem, changes in the configuration of voids and shafts in the upper part of the subterranean system led to secondary deposition of external flint-bearing sediments alongside the primary deposited remains in the cave, and to blockage of other conduits. Since the cave is located in a rapidly-developing rural area, high-resolution documentation of the subterranean system and its surroundings is a valuable tool not only for research purposes, but also for promoting statutory protection of the cave and its natural and archeological legacies.

This study of the political history of Mesopotamia – today’s Iraq and Syria – in the Old Babylonian period (ca. 2000-1600 BCE) is the first comprehensive historical synthesis of this kind published in English after many decades. Based on numerous written sources in Sumerian and Akkadian – royal inscriptions, letters, law collections, economic records, etc. – and on up-to-date research, it presents the region’s political history in a meticulous geographic and chronological manner. This allows the interested academic and non-academic reader an in-depth view into the scene of ancient Mesopotamia ruled by competing dynasties of West Semitic (Amorite) origin, with a complex web of political and tribal connections between them.

Symbol making involves active agency, as it is, by definition, intentional and aims to deliver messages, worldviews, and social contents to designated audiences. As archaeology can specify only elements of behavior that are expressed as material objects, it must focus on material objects and their contexts. Accordingly, this chapter does not aim to elucidate the symbolic content of objects. Whether the role of objects is perceived as a clear dichotomy between utilitarian and symbolic or as a “mixed bag,” in the practice of prehistoric archaeology it is the context of artifacts that is often enlisted to provide telltale signs about their role in the behavioral system. Employing archaeological tools (material culture, chronology, and context), the chapter addresses (1) the epistemology of understanding prehistoric symbols by reviewing criteria that are prevalent in the research to assess whether an object may have acted as a symbolic manifestation and (2) the diachronic shift from a cognitive capacity to comprehend and make symbolic objects to a broader, evolved, symbolic behavioral system. Its review of the Pleistocene symbolic record of the Levant suggests that the trajectories of change parallel patterns (though not necessarily the same chronology) observed in neighboring regions. The analysis suggests that rather than changes in the neurological infrastructure per se, the coevolution of symbolic behavior and social complexity is driven by changes in social cognition as a major adaptive tool in hominin cultural evolution.

Geoarchaeological research at coastal urban sites in the Levant focused until recently on two research directions: the identification of ancient harbors and the study of occupation deposits in settlement portions that are located well above sea level (i.e., 'dry' excavations). Here we present a geoarchaeological study of the southern maritime waterfront of Tel Dor following a coastal excavation at an elevation that is close to current sea level. The research addresses stratigraphic relationships between underwater, coastal and fully terrestrial architectural features (wall remains) and these provide the context for deposits found within the site's perimeter. These coastal deposits were then studied using sediment micromorphology as well as stable carbon and oxygen isotope analysis. Three depositional units have been identified. The lower was found to be coastal deposits earlier than the Iron Age IB (Ir1b, 11-10th c. BCE). The middle unit is an ash deposit containing pottery and bone refuse dating to the Ir1b, probably a town dump, that became indurated due to sea level rise and resembles beachrock. The upper unit is composed of tell occupation deposits, including phytolith-rich layers and evidence for wood ash and compacted livestock dung as in stabling deposits. The latter, dated to the Ir1b – Ir2a (i.e. up-to and including the 9th c. BCE), reflects dumped refuse and livestock keeping in a terrestrial (i.e. non-marine) environment. Overall, this study provides initial insights into site formation processes and human activities at Dor's maritime interface during the Iron Age.

In a recent article published in this journal (Finkelstein 2020 Finkelstein, I., 2020. ‘Iron Age Chronology and Biblical History Rejoinders: The Late Bronze/Iron Age Transition, Tel ʿEton and Lachish’, PEQ 152.2, 85–93.[Taylor & Francis Online] , [Google Scholar], PEQ 152, 85–93), newly published data on Level V at Tel Lachish was criticized. This new data indicates that Level V was a fortified city and that radiometric dating places its construction in the last quarter of the 10th century bce. This date is in accordance with the biblical tradition describing the fortification of Lachish during the reign of King Rehoboam of the Kingdom of Judah in the last quarter of the 10th century bce (2 Chr 11:5–12). In the past, various scholars have proposed dating the list of Rehoboam’s fortification to the reigns of later kings: Hezekiah, Josiah or even John Hyrcanus I. It is thus not surprising that Israel Finkelstein, an advocate of a later date, attempts to refute this new archaeological data.

Much of what is known about human behavior and subsistence strategies in the Levantine Middle Paleolithic comes from long sequences from caves and rock shelters. In this context, studies of stone tool function have traditionally focused on determining the use of Levallois points and triangular elements, either as projectiles or, more rarely, multipurpose knives. Little is known about such tool use and hafting in Middle Paleolithic open-air sites in the Levant through the systematic application of micro-wear analysis. Here we report the results of a low and high-power study performed on the lithic assemblage of the Late Middle Paleolithic open-air site of Nahal Mahanayeem Outlet (NMO, Israel). Most pointed items, including Levallois and non-Levallois points, were used as butchering knives, many of them while hafted; to a much lesser extent they were also used for hide, bone, and wood/plant processing activities. Blades and flakes were mostly handheld and used as butchering knives, with hide, bone, antler, and wood/plant-processing tasks being rare. Hafted artifacts include morphologies and activities for which hafting is not required, indicating that NMO inhabitants possessed varied hafting expertise. Wood/plant processing tools, some of which were hafted, attest that manufacture and maintenance tasks were planned well in advance of game procurement at the site. These results attest to early evidence of hafted butchering knives and hafted plant processing tools for a Late Middle Paleolithic open-air site in the Levant, and support previous interpretations of NMO as a short-term task-specific location focused on animal processing activities, mostly butchery.

The earliest use of silver as a means of payment in the Levant is generally overlooked, and hoarded silver for use as currency is often considered an Iron Age phenomenon. Based on context, typology, and chemical and Pb-isotopic analyses of silver from Megiddo, Gezer and Shiloh, we show, for the first time, that the earliest material evidence for the use of silver as a means of exchange and value in the Southern Levant dates to the MB III (∼1700/1650–1600/1550 BCE). Further developments are gleaned from the analysis of silver hoards from Tell el-‘Ajjul, a site on the southern coast of the Mediterranean Sea, which continued to thrive shortly later (MB/LB–LB I; ∼1600/1550−1400 BCE), while many others sites in the Levant were destroyed or abandoned. Lead isotope analysis (LIA) of silver from these hoards reveals a change in the ore sources of silver, from the MB III, in which silver probably originated from Anatolia, to a different source in the Anatolian-Aegean-Carpathian sphere during the MB/LB–LB I. Comparing the results from Tell el-‘Ajjul with silver from the contemporaneous Royal Shaft Graves in Mycenae in the Greek Peloponnese, we suggest that silver in both assemblages likely originated from the same ores, possibly through Cypriot mediation.

Recent research has made great strides clarifying the chronology, temporal span, and geographic and technological patterning of the Acheulian in eastern Africa. However, highland occurrences of the Acheulian remain under-represented and their relationship to cultural dynamics in the Rift are still poorly understood. Recently, a stratified sequence of four archaeological layers, recording Acheulian occupations dated between ~1.6 Ma and ~1.3 Ma, has been discovered in locality MW2 of the Melka Wakena site-complex (south-central Ethiopian highlands). This database enabled a systematic exploration of the question of tempo and mode of technological changes at a local sequence, allowing, for the first time, comparison with other highland sites as well as in the Rift. The detailed techno-economic study presented in this study shows that the early Acheulian at the locality was characterized by the co-existence of lithic reduction sequences for small debitage and for flake-based Large Cutting Tool production. In the early, ~1.6 Ma assemblage, a strategy of variable raw material exploitation and technological emphasis on small debitage were coupled with production of few crude bifacial elements. These shifted at ~1.4 Ma towards a preferential and intensive exploitation of a highly knappable glassy ignimbrite and emphasis on Large Cutting Tool production, including higher investment in their techno-morphological aspects. The MW2 sequence tracks lithic technological trends observed in the Rift, with only a short time lag. Diachronic changes in the raw material economy and land use patterns may have occurred at MW2 earlier than previously reported for the Acheulian on the highlands. The behavioral dynamics gleaned from the early Acheulian assemblages at MW2 are important for our understanding of the diachronic changes in the abilities of Acheulian hominins to exploit the diverse geographic and ecological habitats of eastern Africa and beyond.