Bizat Ruhama

"The first colonization of Eurasia by early humans constitutes one of the most intriguing issues of Paleolithic Archaeology. Who were the first hominids migrating from Africa? What factors stimulated the migration? What were the cognitive and adaptive skills that allowed them to leave their original habitat and occupy new ecological niches? The proposed research concentrates on a time and place where answers to these questions are most likely to be found namely the Levant, approximately one million years ago.

The Levant constitutes the main terrestrial bridge for hominid dispersal from Africa to Eurasia. Accordingly, early hominids dispersed out from Africa first arrived to the Levant and then colonized other regions of Eurasia. Today it is generally accepted that the first hominids migrating from Africa were bearers of two different cultural traditions, an earlier Oldowan core-chopper industry which was later replaced by Acheulian bifacial industries. According to this model, two different industries existed in the Levant during the Lower Pleistocene; one with various core-tools and associated flakes and another dominated by bifaces. Recently, in the Lower Pleistocene site of Bizat Ruhama on the southern coastal plain of Israel, a unique industry was discovered that apparently does not compare to either Acheulian or Oldowan technologies. Bizat Ruhama is the only site in the Levant with a lithic assemblage that contains no bifaces and core-tools, and has operational sequences that are directed toward the production of retouched tools made on short, thick flakes and fragments (average length of 22 mm). The predominant type in the assemblage is small piercing tools, which suggest that very specific activities were carried out by the site's inhabitants. The small tools in Bizat Ruhama were found together with bones of large ungulates (horses, bovines). However, the thickness and working edge angle preclude their use as cutting instruments. Also they are too small for breaking bones for marrow extraction - one of the most common ways for Oldowan and Acheulian hominids to achieve fats and proteins. Thus, it seems that in Bizat Ruhama the tool-kit was fashioned for activities others than were usually carried out in such early sites. In other words, it might be suggested that the Bizat Ruhama hominids relied on different subsistence strategies than those used by Acheulian or Oldowan hominids.

Understanding the origin of the Bizat Ruhama industry and its technological, behavioral and cultural links or discontinuities with Acheulian and Oldowan traditions are the major goals of my PhD work. Two major hypotheses will be tested:

1. Bizat Ruhama is part of Acheulian or Oldowan technological variability that is derived from special functional needs or from environmental constrains, e.g. absence of appropriate raw material.

2. The Bizat Ruhama lithic assemblage represents a distinct cultural tradition with specific technological sequences based on the need for a particular tool-kit. In this case, this special tool-kit would be representative of a very specific subsistence strategy different from what we know from Acheulian and Oldowan traditions.

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The site of Bizat Ruhama raises some doubts concerning the "two cultures model" in the Levant during Lower Pleistocene. Whether the specific industry of the site represents a third culture of Levantine Lower Pleistocene or it constitutes part of Acheulian or Oldowan variability, its unique characteristics show that human culture and behavior at that time were richer and more variable than previously thought. The present work will help us to achieve a more comprehensive understanding of the cultural and behavioral variability within the Lower Paleolithic in the Levant."

from Yossi Zaidner