Nubian Levallois technology associated with southernmost Neanderthals
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Zanolli, Clement
Compton, Tim
Groucutt, Huw S
Scerri, Eleanor ML
Crete, Lucile
Stringer, Chris
Petraglia, Michael D
Blockley, Simon
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Abstract
Neanderthals occurred widely across north Eurasian landscapes, but between ~ 70 and 50 thousand years ago (ka) they expanded southwards into the Levant, which had previously been inhabited by Homo sapiens. Palaeoanthropological research in the first half of the twentieth century demonstrated alternate occupations of the Levant by Neanderthal and Homo sapiens populations, yet key early findings have largely been overlooked in later studies. Here, we present the results of new examinations of both the fossil and archaeological collections from Shukbah Cave, located in the Palestinian West Bank, presenting new quantitative analyses of a hominin lower first molar and associated stone tool assemblage. The hominin tooth shows clear Neanderthal affinities, making it the southernmost known fossil specimen of this population/species. The associated Middle Palaeolithic stone tool assemblage is dominated by Levallois reduction methods, including the presence of Nubian Levallois points and cores. This is the first direct association between Neanderthals and Nubian Levallois technology, demonstrating that this stone tool technology should not be considered an exclusive marker of Homo sapiens.
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Scientific Reports
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11
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1
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© The Author(s) 2021. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made.
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Anthropology
Archaeology
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Multidisciplinary Sciences
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Blinkhorn, J; Zanolli, C; Compton, T; Groucutt, HS; Scerri, EML; Crete, L; Stringer, C; Petraglia, MD; Blockley, S, Nubian Levallois technology associated with southernmost Neanderthals, Scientific Reports, 2021, 11 (1), pp. 2869