Mousterian Lithic Assemblages of Merdivenli Cave

Abstract

Most scientists agree that modern humans left Africa relatively recently. However, there is less agreement about the number of dispersal events and the route or routes taken by humans and when they migrated out of Africa. The earliest evidence for a dispersal of Homo sapiens into Eurasia comes from the central Levant, but it is unclear how geographically extensive this early dispersal was. Likewise, many researchers agree that Neanderthals dispersed back into the Levant during MIS 5 (123-130 Ka.), but it is uncertain where those populations originated. Information from areas geographically intermediate between the Levant and more distal parts of Eurasia is crucial to obtaining a more realistic understanding of the ebb and flow of human Pleistocene populations. This article examines Middle Paleolithic artifact assemblages from Merdivenli Cave in the Hatay Region, southern Anatolia (Turkey) in order to assess the similarities with better known assemblages from neighboring areas. The stone tools from Merdivenli Cave are characterized Levallois production similar to "Tabun C type" Mousterian assemblages, and therefore it is possible that these assemblages were also associated with archaic Homo sapiens, as in the central Levant.