The Palaeolithic Assemblages from the Douara Cave Site, Syria, and their Relationship to the Prehistory of Western Asia

Abstract

This paper has presented the general description of the assemblages collected from the Douara Cave Site in Syria, and examined the relationships to these assemblages to those from relevant sites elsewhere, to provide new data for a framework to which future work on the Palaeolithic in Western Asia can be related.Knowledge of the Palaeolithic in Western Asia has increased greatly in recent years largely as a result of excavations of relevant sites and also as a result of restudy of certain site and museum collections such as Khiam (ECHEGARY, 1964, 1966), Abri Bergy (COPELAND and WAECHTER, 1968) and Ksar Akil (TIXIER, 1970). But a number of problems remain unsolved. For example, the problem of the succession of the Palaeolithic culture and the problem of European-West Asian cultural relationships.Moreover, most studies of Palaeolithic culture in Western Asia have concentrated in the areas of the Mediterranean coast and the Jordan Valley in the Levant, and the Zagros area. But the research on the sites in inland areas is rather insufficient and only two Palaeolithic sites, Yabrud (RUST, 1950; SOLECKI and SOLECKI, 1966) and Jerf Ajla (COON, 1957; SCHROEDER, 1966, 1969) are fully reported. Thus there is a regional difference in the quantity of information availabie, and this presents an obstacle to systematic interpretation of Palaeolithic culture in Western Asia. In comparing the data from the Zagros with that from the Levant, more comprehensive and interesting studies would be possible if we had more information from the Syrian inland which lies between these two areas. To that end, the Tokyo University Scientific Expedition to Western Asia has researched the site at Douara Cave since 1967.From the excavation of 1970 season, some 3, 500 flints were found. The volume of deposits and quantity of artifacts in Layers A through E were enough to examine the typological and technological characteristics of the collections, both quantitatively and qualitatively. On the other hand, the underlying layers were poor archaeological deposits (Layers F through I) and sterile (Layers J through N).The assemblages from Layers A through E of Douara Cave contain two distinct industries: an industry with a large quantity of blade and bladelet elements of Upper Palaeolithic character found in Layers A and B, and an industry with a large proportion of Levallois flakes found in Layers C, D and E. The Upper Palaeolithic industry found in Layers A and B corresponds both typologically and technologically to the terminal stage (Stage 6) of the Upper Palaeolithic in Western Asia as represented by the industries of Kebarah (Layer C), Yabrud Shelter III (Layers 4, 6 and 7) and Zarzi (Layer B). This stage probably dates to the end of the final stadial of the Last Pluvial (HOWELL, 1959).The Middle Palaeolithic industry in Layers C, D and E is identified both typologically and technologically as the Levalloiso-Mousterian or the Mousterian of Levallois facies of the Middle Palaeolithic in Western Asia. Such assemblages are characterized by the dominance of the Levallois technique in the production of tool blanks and by Middle Palaeolithic tools of the Levallois type. Other tools of Mousterian and Upper Palaeolithic types are very few. The Levalloiso-Mousterian assemblages have been found in dozens of sites in Western Asia. However, these assemblages exhibit a great typological and technological variability. It remains to clarify and interpret the variability among the Levalloiso-Mousterian assemblages in Western Asia in connection with that of Douara Cave.