Shuqba cave

Shuqba cave is an archaeological site near the town of Shuqba in the western Judaean Mountains in the West Bank.

Location

Shuqba cave is located on the northern bank of Wadi en-Natuf. This wadi is a kilometer south of the town of Shuqba, and runs west towards the Mediterranean coastal plain. The town is 28 km northwest of Jerusalem. This area is within the Judaean Mountains.

History of exploration

The site was briefly investigated in 1924 by Father Alexis Mallon, who suggested that the British School of Archaeology in Jerusalem take responsibility for excavating the cave. During the course of one season Dorothy Garrod, with a team of local workers, placed a trench in the central chamber, as well as a small sounding in Chamber III. She identified an archaeological sequence which included a Late "Levallois-Mousterian" layer. It also included a Mesolithic layer that she subsequently named "Natufian". This was the first time that a Natufian layer had been found as part of a stratified deposit. This layer contained charcoal traces and a previously unknown microlithic stone tool industry characterized by crescent-shaped lunates. Garrod's team found worked bone objects. The fauna was dominated by gazelle, and also included the domestic dog. The remains of 45 human skeletons, mostly fragmentary, allowed insights into a range of distinctive mortuary practices.

This page contains text from Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia - https://wn.com/Shuqba_cave

location on Google Map

Shuqba

Shuqba (Arabic: شقبة‎) is a Palestinian town in the Ramallah and al-Bireh Governorate, located 17.71 kilometers northwest of the city of Ramallah in Palestine. It is bounded from the southwest by the village of Qibya, from the southeast by Shabatin, from the northeast by Deir Abu Mish'al and from the north by the Israeli settlement of Ofarim.

Shuqba has a total area of 13,990 dunams and the built-up area comprises 616 dunams. (PCBS), Shuqba was home to approximately 4,497 inhabitants in 2007.

Dorothy Garrod studied the transition of Mesolithic to Neolithic culture represented in a cave on the northern bank of Wadi an-Natuf near Shuqba in 1929, the name "Natufian Culture" was then coined to describe the inhabitants of the southern Levant at this crucial juncture in human history.