The setting of the Mt. Carmel caves reassessed

Four caves on the SW flank of Mt. Carmel, es Skhul, el Wad, el Jaml and et Tabun, were first excavated in the 1930s by a team led by Dorothy Garrod. They yielded human remains whose age and evolutionary status remain controversial partly because the complexity of the cave deposits invites conflicting interpretations. The abrasion of artefacts and pebbles in el Wad and es Skhul, which was originally ascribed to spring flow within the caves, is explained here by wave action, with the implication that during part of the Middle Palaeolithic the caves were on the shoreline rather than being separated from it—as they now are—by several kilometres of coastal plain and a height difference of some 45 m. U-series, thermoluminescence (TL) and electron spin resonance (ESR) dating suggests that this occurred about 120,000 years ago, when sea level in the eastern Mediterranean stood 5–6 m above its present position. It follows that Mt. Carmel has subsequently undergone some 40 m of uplift. During the period of maximum submergence, the coastal route between Africa and the northern Mediterranean would have been partly blocked, but the loss of the coastal plain for transit and as a source of animal food was offset by easier access from the caves to marine resources.