Abstract
The Early Ahmarian represents an Early Upper Palaeolithic cultural unit, which spans throughout the Levant to the Sinai Peninsula. At least 40 sites belong to this unit. Both open-air and cave sites provide different amounts of archaeological material at various spatial resolutions. The team of the Collaborative Research Centre 806 “Our Way to Europe” excavated the site of Al-Ansab 1, Wadi Sabra, since 2009. The site provides one of the largest lithic assemblages of the Early Ahmarian. Analysis of intra-site distributions and patterns has been conducted for a small number of sites, providing scarce information on the spatial makeup of Early Ahmarian occupation layers. The internal structure testifies to repeated settlement without task specialisation. While this has been described for the sites on the Sinai Peninsula, the situation has been unclear for locations placed in the escarpments of the Transjordanian Highlands. At Al-Ansab 1, we can observe the repeated, relatively ephemeral occupation of a specific location in the Wadi Sabra for the execution of various tasks such as processing of faunal elements and raw material exploitation. Our results correlate to a pattern of mobility observable at other Early Ahmarian sites such as Abu Noshra II. These sites are usually attributed to relatively small and highly mobile bands of hunter-gatherers. Analysing these patterns of intra-site and regional spatial behaviour in the context of environmental patterning highlights potential external drivers to the expression of human occupation at sites such as Al-Ansab 1, archaeological horizon 1.
Highlights
About 45,000 years ago, anatomically modern humans began to permanently establish themselves in the Levant (Alex et al 2017; Hershkovitz et al 2015; Hublin 2015; Richter et al 2020)
Humans expanded into the Mediterranean biome along the shores of the Mediterranean Sea in the context of the Early Ahmarian cultural unit
About 40 sites are associated with the Early Ahmarian dating to c. 46,000/42,000– 31,000/29,000 cal
Summary
About 45,000 years ago, anatomically modern humans began to permanently establish themselves in the Levant (Alex et al 2017; Hershkovitz et al 2015; Hublin 2015; Richter et al 2020). Humans expanded into the Mediterranean biome along the shores of the Mediterranean Sea in the context of the Early Ahmarian cultural unit. They populated marginal areas in a second phase of expansion (Richter et al 2020). Intra-site spatial analysis as well as refitting of artefacts permit insights into the internal structuring of these locations. Marks and Friedel (1977) assume a pattern of high mobility for sites in the Negev Desert. This is corroborated by locations such as Abu Noshra I and II in the Wadi Feiran (Becker 2003)
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