Where Hominins Converged
On the western slopes of Mount Carmel, a series of caves known as the Nahal Me'arot preserve one of the longest sequences of human occupation in the Levant. The Tabun Cave, or "Oven Cave," holds a sedimentary record stretching back 500,000 years. These deposits, reaching a depth of 25 meters (82 feet), reveal a history of intermittent settlement through the Lower and Middle Paleolithic periods.
Excavations led by British archaeologist Dorothy Garrod from 1929 to 1934 systematically uncovered this deep history. Her work established the chronological sequence of the entire region. Within the cave's layers, her team found a nearly complete female Neanderthal skeleton, known as Tabun C1. Dated to approximately 120,000 years ago, this individual is one of the oldest human fossils ever found in Israel. The skeleton has classic Neanderthal features: prominent brow ridges and a stocky, cold-adapted build.
A Shared Region
The discovery of the Tabun woman (Homo neanderthalensis) was important, but the context of the surrounding caves makes it even more so. In the adjacent Es-Skhul cave, archaeologists found the skeletons of at least ten individuals. These remains, belonging to early Homo sapiens, date to between 90,000 and 120,000 years ago. This places the two hominin species in the same location at roughly the same time.
The Levant appears to have been a region where populations of Neanderthals and early modern humans overlapped for tens of thousands of years. The toolkits found in the caves, specifically the Mousterian stone tool culture, were used by both groups, suggesting a possible exchange of knowledge and behaviors. The presence of both species in close proximity over such a long period indicates a complex relationship that questions linear models of human dispersal out of Africa. Genetic evidence from modern non-African humans, which contains 1-4% Neanderthal DNA, confirms that interbreeding occurred, and the Levant is a primary candidate for where these interactions took place.