Modern behavior of early humans found half-million years earlier than previously thought

The discovery was made in the course of excavations at the prehistoric Gesher Benot Ya'aqov site, located along the Dead Sea rift in the southern Hula Valley of northern Israel, by a team from the Hebrew University Institute of Archaeology. Analysis of the spatial distribution of the findings there reveals a pattern of specific areas in which various activities were carried out. This kind of designation indicates a formalized conceptualization of living space, requiring social organization and communication between group members. Such organizational skills are thought to be unique to modern humans.

Attempts until now to trace the origins of such behavior at various prehistoric sites in the world have concentrated on spatial analyses of Middle Paleolithic sites, where activity areas, particularly those associated with hearths, have been found dating back only to some 250,000 years ago.

The new Hebrew University study, a report on which was recently published in the journal Science, describes an Acheulian (an early stone tools culture) layer at Gesher Benot Ya'aqov that has been dated to about 750,000 years ago. The evidence found there consists of numerous stone tools, animal bones and a rich collection of botanical remains.

Analyses of the spatial distribution of all these finds revealed two activity areas in the layer: the first area is characterized by abundant evidence of flint tool manufacturing. A high density of fish remains in this area also suggests that the processing and consumption of many fish were carried out in this area -- one of the earliest evidences for fish consumption by prehistoric people anywhere.

In the second area, identified evidence indicates a greater variation of activities -- all of which took place in the vicinity of a hearth. The many wood pieces found in this area were used as fuel for the fire. Processing of basalt and limestone was spatially restricted to the hearth area, where activities indicate the use of large stone tools such as hand axes, chopping tools, scrapers, and awls. The presence of stone hammers, and in particular of pitted anvils (used as nutting stones), suggest that nut processing was carried out near the hearth and may have involved the use of nut roasting. In addition, fish and crabs were probably consumed near the hearth.

The Gesher Benot Ya'aqov excavations were carried out under the direction of Prof., Naama Goren-Inbar. The research collaborators are Dr. Ella Werker, Dr. Nira Alperson-Afil, Dr. Gonen Sharon, Dr. Rivka Rabinovich, Dr. Shosh Ashkenazi, Dr. Irit Zohar and Rebecca Biton of the Hebrew University Institute of Archaeology. Prof. Mordechai Kislev and Dr. Yoel Melamed of Bar Ilan University, Dr. Gideon Hartman of the Max Planck Institute and Prof. Craig Feibel of Rutgers University.