The Acheulian Site of Gesher Benot Ya'aqov, Israel - N Goren-Inbar

Gesher Benot Ya'aqov, located in the Dead Sea Rift valley, is
one of the oldest non-African sites to have yielded evidence for
the activities of groups of hominin hunter-gatherers. The
excavations recovered thousands of Acheulian period stone tools
and animal bones that had accumulated in and around an ancient
lake about 780, 000 years ago. The deposits have remained
waterlogged virtually ever since, and this unusual circumstance
resulted in the preservation of plant macrofossils, including
pieces of wood and bark that can be identified to the level of
individual plant species. Most of the pieces probably accumulated
naturally around the lake, but a few show signs of hominin
modification - making them the oldest wooden artefacts yet
discovered. The unique contribution of the Gesher Benot Ya'aqov
palaeobotanical assemblage, however, lies in its value for the
palaeoenvironmental reconstruction of a pre-agricultural age - an
age that predates changes induced by intensive human activity.
This monograph describes the geological and archaeological
context of the ancient wood, the criteria for its identification,
and its implications for the woods surrounding Gesher Benot
Ya'aqov in Lower to Middle Pleistocene times. They include
detailed descriptions of the different wood taxa, discuss the
present habitats of the identified species, and consider the
possible mechanisms by which the wood was deposited. They also
provide a survey of the wood fragments that have occasionally
been found at other ancient Palaeolithic sites. This volume is
the first in a series of monographs which will focus on different
aspects of the multidisciplinary investigations at Gesher Benot
Ya'aqov.