Mount Carmel

Carmel, Mount 

a mountain in the northern part of Palestine (on the territory of the state of Israel). In 1929—34 human skeletal remains together with Levalloisian-type stone implements and the bones of fossil animals were discovered in the caves of Tabun and Skhul on Mount Carmel’s western slope. In the Tabun cave, an almost complete skeleton of a Neanderthal woman and the lower jaw of a male skull with a distinct chin prominence were found. In the Skhul cave, the bones of ten skeletons in varying states of preservation were found, characterized by great individual differences and by a combination of Neanderthal and modern features in the structure of the skull and other parts of the skeleton. The Tabun and Skhul populations lived 40, 000–45, 000 years ago. Some scholars consider the population of the Mount Carmel caves to be the result of the hybridization between Neanderthal man and the populations of modern type; others see them as an evolutionary transition from ancient man to modern man.

REFERENCES

Roginskii, Ia. Ia., and M. G. Levin. Antropologiia. Moscow, 1963.
McCown, T. D., and A. Keith. The Stone Age of Mount Carmel, vol. 2.Oxford, 1939.