Sharon, G., 2018. A Week in the Life of the Mousterian Hunter. In: Nishiaki, Y., Akazawa, T. (Eds.), The Middle and Upper Paleolithic Archeology of the Levant and Beyond. Springer Singapore, Singapore, pp. 35–47.
Abstract
Eight excavation seasons at the Mousterian site of Nahal Mahanyeem Outlet (NMO) on the banks of the Upper Jordan River offer a glimpse into the life ways of MP people during a hunting expedition in the Northern Dead Sea Rift. This open-air site, OSL dated to ca. 60ky BP, is interpreted as recording a series of short-term hunting events. The NMO horizons, with their small number of lithic artifacts, unique typological composition and evidence for task specific hunting and butchering activity fit within Binford’s definition of a “task location”. Many of the models suggested to describe site pattern and mobility activity, such as the foraging and logistical models, are based primarily upon theoretical consideration and ethnographic evidence. NMO gives us the opportunity to test such models based on archaeological evidence.
