Order in the Cave: Examining Resource Management in Basecamp Setting through the Tabun Cave Sequence, Israel

Summary

This is an abstract from the "The Far-Reaching Influence of Steven L. Kuhn" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

Logistic mobility and basecamps crystallized in the Middle Pleistocene and became habitual, focusing mainly on caves. Among the basecamp’s characteristics are the abundant resources consumed and accumulated, brought by its partners, including lithics. Reusing accumulated chert enables reducing efforts on its further procurement while shifting the conserved energy to augment other resource foraging – primarily plants and animals. Living, however, on the junk of “yesterday’s” activities and that of former occupations within the confined space of the cave, coupled with the growing use of fire—a notable feature of basecamps—can reduce this prospect of chert exploitation. Thus, maximizing the potential of chert reuse necessitated organization. As palimpsest often characterizes Middle Pleistocene sites camouflaging spatial patterns, we raise the hypothesis that on-site lithic resource-management will outcome in varying frequencies of burnt artifacts of different categories – namely, items with potential to be further reduced or recycled will be eschewed from fire. To examine this, we explore the late Lower Paleolithic layers of Tabun Cave, Israel, excavated by A. Jelinek and demonstrate the differences between blanks, scrapers, handaxes and cores. We further discuss the extent to which these changes reflect new approaches in resource organization.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 90th Annual Meeting, Denver, CO (2025)   •
• The Far-Reaching Influence of Steven L. Kuhn

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 52463