1The Douara Cave Site, spanning the Middle and Upper Palaeolithic and the Post-Palaeolithic, is located about 200 km northeast of Damascus, Syria, and about 18 km northeast of the Roman oasis town of Palmyra, approximately in the middle of the Syrian Desert. The cave is on the southern slope of Jebel ed Douara in the mountain masses that bound the Palmyra Basin on the north. These mountains are part of the Palmyrides which branch in a northeasterly direction from the southwest of the Anti-Lebanon Mountains. The floor of the cave is about 557 m above sea level. The entrance is 10 m wide and 12m high, and the depth is 14m. The cave has a corridor-like plan. Except for the Middle Palaeolithic Jerf Ajla Site (Coon, 1957;Schroeder, 1966,1969) about 25 km to the west of Douara, there was until recently almost no prehistoric investigation of the inner regions of Syria, particularly of the Palmyra region. But in 1967 the Third Tokyo University Scientific Expedition to Western Asia carried out a general prehistoric survey of Syria and Lebanon and in the course of this survey discovered in Syria a number of new sites ranging from the Middle Palaeolithic to the Post-Palaeolithic (Suzuki and Kobori, 1970). Douara Cave, together with the Keoue Site in Lebanon (10 km south of Tripoli) (Watanabe, 1970), was seen from the beginning as the most promising of the newly discovered cave sites because many flint implements of types from the Middle Palaeolithic to the Post-Palaeolithic were scattered on the terrace surface of the cave. Therefore, the Fourth Tokyo University Expedition to Western Asia carried out systematic excavation of Douara Cave for 2 months in August and September, 1970. The expedition included specialists from anthropology, prehistory, paleontology, geography and geomorphology. The members were:
Unfortunately the excavation did not find the hoped-for Neanderthal skeleton, but it did find a large quantity of Middle and Upper Palaeolithic flint implements and fossil animal bones. It also found a Middle Palaeolithic hearth in the inner-most part of the cave. However, the 1970 season's expedition made only a partial excavation of the cave. We anticipate further excavation in the near future. The present report is a preliminary publication of the results of this first excavation of Douara Cave. The report is in two parts - the first (Part I) deals with the natural environment, with the geography, sedimentology and palynology, and the second (Part II) deals with the flint artifacts and the faunal remains and, based on these data, the relationships of the Douara Cave to sites in other regions of Western Asia. 2The background of the work of the Tokyo University Scientific Expedition to Western Asia is provided by a succession of events, prehistoric finds in Western Asia, and the controversies around them. In 1925 the Galilee skull was discovered in the Zuttiyeh Cave (Mugharet et-Zuttiyeh) in upper Galilee (Turville-Petre, 1927). This confirmed for the first time the existence of Neanderthal man in Asia. But Keith (1927) cautioned that the morphological features of modern man were apparent in the form of this skull. Later in 1929-34, two morphologically quite different skulls, both associated with a Levalloiso-Mousterian industry, were discovered in Tabun and Skhul Caves at the mouth of Wadi el-Mughara near Mount Carmel in Haifa (Garrod and Bate, 1937;McCown and Keith, 1939). The skull from Tabun was Neanderthaloid; the one from Skhul was like Upper Palaeolithic man. Then in 1934-35, skulls with sapient-like cranial features, very like those of Skhul man of Mount Carmel, were discovered in Levalloiso-Mousterian strata at Jebel Qafzeh Cave near Nazareth (Boule and Vallois, 1952; Vandermeersch, 1969; Vallois and Vandermeersch, 1972). A lively argument ensued revolving around Mount Carmel man and Qafzeh man. According to McCown and Keith (1939) the abundance of sapient-like characters in Mount Carmel man is an indication that he broke away from the stem of mankind emerging in Western Asia during early Pleistocene times, at a date later than did the ancestral stock of the Neanderthals of Western Europe. There are several other opposing opinions on this point. One of these holds that Tabun man is Neanderthal and that Skhul is its descendants on a transitional stage toward Homo sapiens (Weidenreich, 1939). Another theory holds that Tabun man is a local Neanderthal (Howell, 1958). Mount Carmel man is not a uniform population: Tabun women is held to be Praeneanderthal, and the Skhul population is representative of Praesapiens (Gieseler, 1955; Le Gros dark, 1955). As opposed to this, Skhul man is Praesapiens and Upper Palaeolithic man stems from him (Howell, 1958; Gieseler, 1955; Ferembach, 1970). On the other hand, some hold the opinion that Mount Carmel man is a hybrid between Neanderthal man and Homo sapiens (Dobzhansky, 1944,1955; Montagu, 1960;Thoma, 1965). There are also differences of opinion as to the connection between the Middle Palaeolithic industry and the Upper Palaeolithic industry due to the haziness of the origins of the Upper Palaeolithic industry. However, it has been pointed out that there are transitional stages of both industries in Western Asia (Ewing, 1956,1963). With these problems in mind, the Tokyo University Scientific Expedition to Western Asia excavated the Amud Cave in Upper Galilee in the Jordan Valley, Israel, in 1961 and 1964 (Suzuki and Takai, 1970). Four human skeletons were found (Amud I-IV), in particular, the complete,in situ skeleton of Amud I. Geologically these skeletons are referable to the Göttweig Interstadial, and the lithic industry appears to be transitional between the Middle and the Upper Palaeolithic (Watanabe, 1970). Amud man's skull shows a close fundamental morphological similarity to the European classic Neanderthal in such features as the large-size cranium with platycephalia, the backward sloping of the forehead, the circular contour of the skull in norma occipitalis, the backward shifting of the position of both the bregma and euryon points, and the development of the occipital torus. However, it differs from the European classic Neanderthal in having a higher cranial vault, more strongly curved frontal and parietal bones, less angulated occipital bone with a more inflated nuchal plane, higher squama of the temporal bone with large mastoid process, more progressed separation into two elements of the supraorbital torus, no sphenoprosopic face and a more prominent chin. The morphology of the mandible also deserves attention. It is a large mandible with small teeth and a wide gap between M3 and the anterior margin of the mandibular ramus. This gap is also seen in the Skhul population, but generally it is much narrower than on Amud man and is absent on Skhul VIII. The absence of this gap is regarded as non-Neanderthal feature of Skhul man (Coon, 1963). Taken together, the skeletal features of Amud man suggest he should be regarded as a transitional form between Neanderthal and Homo sapiens. However, the Skhul population had morphologically more progressive features than Amud man but was found with a Middle Palaeolithic Levalloiso-Mousterian industry rather than an industry transistional between the Middle and Upper Palaeolithic (Watanabe, 1970). Furthermore, the Ksar 'Akilman (Ewing, 1947, 1956, 1963) is regarded as Homo sapiens, but he was found with a transitional industry. Stewart (1958, 1959,1961,1962.1963) in his study of Shanidar man suggests that it resembles the Mount Carmel skeletons, in particular, the Tabun remains. Here it is notable that the cranial and post-cranial bones of Amud man are morphologically suprisingly similar to those of Shanidar and Tabun man, which suggests strong racial affinities between the three. But, Shanidar man was found with the typical Mousterian lacking in the Levallois core (Solecki, 1952, 1953, 1955a, b, 1960, 1971) and Tabun man with a Levalloiso-Mousterian Industry. The question of the regional relationships and the origins of the cultures of these three fossil men is of great interest. With regard to this question, one might also consider the Yabrud Site near Nebek on the western side of the Anti-Lebanon Mountains. According to Rust (1950, 1958), in the deposits of Abri I a blade industry manifesting a primitive Aurignacian technique suddenly appears in a layer corresponding in age to the Acheulean and preceding the Mousterian, and Pre-Aurignacian is found again in a layer corresponding to the Mousterian. From this, Rust postulates the possibility of an invasion of Western Asia form south-western Asia by Pre-sapiens with a developing blade culture. Thus, we see this question is not only a problem of the relationship of Neanderthal man and Homo sapiens in Western Asia but a general question of the origins of Homo sapiens. It is at this juncture that the 1967 season's Third Tokyo University Scientific Expedition to Western Asia was planned in order to get a better understanding of the unique characteristics of Amud man and his culture and to clarify the genetical relationships of Neanderthal man and Homo sapiens. From May 1967 to January 1968 we made a general survey of the area north of the Amud Cave in Lebanon and Syria - the Bekka Valley extension of the Jordan Valley and the Mediterranean coastal area, and Yabrud and the Syrian desert in the interior of Syria. The results of this survey were the discovery of 25 new sites in Lebanon and 75 new sites including Douara Cave in Syria (Suzuki and Kobori, 1970). These sites range in age from the Middle Palaeolithic Period to the Upper and Post-Palaeolithic Periods. Douara Cave was selected from the new sites for excavation in the 1970 season's Fourth Tokyo University Expedition to Western Asia. Three trenches, each 1 m wide, were excavated in the cave. Trench A is 5 m long and lies along the opening of the cave; Trench B is 12 m long and at a right angle to Trench A along the long axis of the cave; and Trench C is 2 m long and parallel to Trench A in about the middle of the cave. A 1m × 1m grid was used. Bedrock was exposed only in a limited area of the trenches at a depth of 4.3 m. The remainder of the deposits was left unexcavated in the 1970 season. This preliminary excavation provided information on the geological layers of the cave deposits and the lithic assemblages contained in them. There are 14 layers (numbered A through N) in the cave, each clearly distinguished by color and texture, but generally homogenous throughout the cave. Carbon from a hearth in Layer E yielded a data of > 43,900 B.P. (TK-111). Other samples yielded younger dates, but these probably were all contaminated (Kigoshi, see Appendix I). Seven types of animals were tentatively identified among the faunal remains. These are Insectivora spp., Rodentia spp., Carnivora spp., Equus hemionus, Gazella sp., Camelus sp. and serpents. The smaller animals such as insectivores, rodents and serpents are more common in the upper horizons, and the larger animals such as horses and antelopes are more common in the lower horizons. This variation might relate to the two distinct industries found in these horizons (see below). The 1970 season's excavation recovered about 3500 flint artifacts. These artifacts were contained only in 9 layers (A through I). The layers below I were sterile. The volume of the deposits excavated in Layers F through I was small and only a few Middle Palaeolithic flint artifacts were recovered from these layers. But in each of the 5 layers A-E several hundred artifacts were recovered, and these can be divided into 2 main assemblages. An Upper Palaeolithic assemblage including large numbers of scrapers, gravers, backed knives and geometrics made on blade or bladelet blanks was found in Layers A and B. A Middle Palaeolithic assemblage including large numbers of unretouched Levallois tools on Levallois flake, blade and point blanks, and some Mousterian type tools, was found in Layers C, D and E. There are over 10 sites in Western Asia with assemblages resembling that of Layers A and B, but the most important ones are Kebarah Layer C in Israel (Turville.Petre, 1932), Yabrud Shelter III Layers 4, 6 and 7 in Syria (Rust, 1950) and Zarzi Layer B in Iraq (Garrod, 1930). The assemblages of these three sites, while retaining many technological and typological characteristics of Upper Palaeolithic type, also included a large percentage of geometric tools representative of Mesolithic industries. The tool composition of the Douara Layers A and B assemblage has the same distinctive characteristics. Such assemblages belong to Stage 6 in Neuville's (1951) division of the Upper Palaeolithic in Western Asia. These Stage 6 industries probably correspond to the final stage of the Last Pluvial and the onset of the Post-Pluvial (Howell, 1959). The Middle Palaeolithic in Western Asia is divided typologically and technologically into the Zagros Mousterian, the Yabrudian and the Levalloiso-Mousterian industries. These have different geographical distributions, and in the case of the latter two, the Yabrudian precedes the Levalloiso-Mousterian (Skinner, 1965). On the basis of technological and typological characteristics, the Douara Layers C, D and E assemblage belongs to the Levalloiso-Mousterian, but the tens of presently known Levalloiso-Mousterian assemblages show a great deal of variation (Skinner, 1965). To which of these various assemblages Douara's assemblage best compares is a problem. But the 1970 season's work was only preliminary, and the question cannot be pursued further at this juncture. This will be taken up again with the materials from the next, main excavation in the near future. 3Support for the research upon which this study is based has come from a number of sources, both individual and institutional. We would like to express our sincere gratitude to all. At first, we record our thanks to Dr. A. H. Darkel, Director of the Directorate General of Antiquities and Museums in Damascus, who gave special support and assistence to our expedition and kindly permitted us to borrow the complete materials collected from the Douara Cave Site to study in Tokyo. Among the many persons to be acknowledged, we must mention Dr. A. Bouni and Mr. N. Saliby, and other members of the Directorate General of Antiquities and Museums in Damascus; Mr. K. Assad, Mr. A. Taha and Mr. K. Khamber, and other staff of the Department of Antiquities and Museums in Palmyra; Dr. S. Atfeh, Director of Geological Research and Mineral Resources Department, and Dr. S. Safadi, Director of Irrigation and Water Resources Department, in the Syrian Arab Republic; Dr. A. Abdul-Salam and Dr. N. Omar and their colleagues of the Faculty of Literature and the Faculty of Science, the University of Damascus; Mr. S. Nikai, Ambassador, 1970, of the Embassy of Japan, Damascus, and other staff of the Embassy of Japan, Damascus. The success of the present study could never have been achieved without a great deal of help from friends and colleagues, many with special knowledge and skills. Foremost among them we must thank Professor Y. Takayanagi, Geological and Paleontological Institute of the Faculty of Science, Tohoku University; Professor H. Hamaguchi, Department of Chemistry, and Dr. Y. Fukuda, Department of Botany, Faculty of Science, the University of Tokyo; Professor C. T. Keally, Sophia University, Tokyo. We are also grateful to the staff of our Tokyo University Scientific Expedition to Western Asia and the Museum workers of the University of Tokyo: Miss T. Asahi, Mrs. K. Asano, Mrs. M. Baba, Miss Y. Endo, Mrs. S. Iwasaki, Miss T. Namiki, Mr. S. Okada,Mrs. K. Suwa,Mrs, C. Tanabe,Mrs. Y. Torisu, Mrs. S. Watanabe, Mr. M. Yamashita. This study was financially supported by the Grant for Overseas Scientific Research in 1970 from the Japanese Ministry of Education and by the Federation of Economic Organization of Japan (Mr. K. Uemura, President; Mr. T. Horikoshi,Vice President; Mr. N. Hanamura, Senior Managing Director). Additional aid for the study at the University of Tokyo, from 1970 - 1973, was furnished by The Mitsubishi Foundation (Mr. Y. Tajitsu, President) (Code Nos. 7020008, 7120006). REFERENCES
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