Prehistoric Transition: A newly revealed cave in Israel may reveal secrets of early Neanderthals
Rediscovered right on the edge of a bustling town, frantic archeologist calls not only delayed a highway to be through it, but got the route rerouted to a bridge over it. Why is this cave so valuable?
Haaretz
75
12 min read
0 views
Rediscovered right on the edge of a bustling town, frantic archeologist calls not only delayed a highway to be through it, but got the route rerouted to a bridge over it. Why is this cave so valuable?
Much of Israel is semi-arid, but the cave recently revealed to the public on a stony hillside at Fureidis, just north of Caesarea, is in the Mediterranean climate zone. Today this Paleolithic site is on the outskirts of a bustling town. Those aren't butterflies frisking in the breeze but microplastics, yet the attraction to the hominins – a broad term for early and later human species – thronging the Carmel range around 400,000 to 250,000 years ago is clear.
The climate is gorgeous almost year-round. There had been a bubbling spring right there, or at least enough seepage to slake thirst. There was a roof over their hominin heads, which gradually collapsed over the generations, and a plethora of wildlife from which to chase their daily bread.
Today the spring is no more, any wild animals still lurking are not considered edible by most folk and the bucolic Mediterranean ambiance has been replaced by urban din. Due to the fact that its roof had fallen in and sealed it off, the cave had remained closed, silent and forgotten until –
Not until infrastructure works, for once. Actually, it remained unmolested by modern attentions until the 1970s, when the collapsed cave was noticed by the archaeologist Yaakov Olami, who described it in his survey book "Prehistoric Carmel" in 1984.
Some of these prehistoric sites don't exist anymore because they've been built over. That would have been the fate of Fureidis Cave too, because it lies smack in the route of a new road being built into the city, but it will be spared the jackhammer.
Why, actually? It would be overstating the case to say that Israel is littered with Paleolithic sites, but it sort of is. What's special about this one?
About 400,000 to 250,000 years ago, at the cusp of the Acheulean-Yabrudian transition, hominins used this caveCredit: Amit Gabay / Israel Antiquities Authority
About 400,000 to 250,000 years ago, at the cusp of the Acheulean-Yabrudian transition, hominins used this caveCredit: Amit Gabay / Israel Antiquities Authority
And then there were tractors
A number of sites from Olami's survey had been excavated but not this one, which he settled for cursorily identifying as a Mousterian site – referring to a period from about 250,000 to 50,000 years ago. A subsequent survey in 2013 observed tools typical of the Acheulean-Yabrudian complex, i.e., much older – 400,000 to 250,000 years ago.
This rough dating is now confirmed by the excavation of Fureidis Cave that Kobi Vardi and Amit Gabay are conducting on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority with Ron Shimelmitz of the Zinman Institute of Archaeology, School of Archaeology and Maritime Cultures, at the University of Haifa.
That 2013 survey placed Fureidis Cave on the list of things to explore one day, Shimelmitz explains. In November 2025, the day arrived. He went to the cave with archaeologists Tamar Rosenberg-Yefet and Amit Muallem, intending merely to gain better understanding of the site and plan an excavation project.
They were almost too late. "Suddenly we saw tractors. They were taking the mountain apart," Shimelmitz says, referring to the roadbuilders. He phoned Vardi, head of the Prehistoric Branch at the IAA, who promptly arranged the salvage excavation with his colleagues Anan Azab, IAA's Haifa district manager. It began right after Passover 2026. For once, one could say the site wasn't revealed by infrastructure works but it may be saved by them.
'Tis early days. No hominin remains have been discovered, at least yet, though Shimelmitz points out that the purpose of archaeology isn't necessarily to find human remains but to reconstruct the past.
Fureidis Cave expedition, from left: Ron Shimelmitz, Kobi Vardi and Amit GabbayCredit: The Fureidis Cave Project
Fureidis Cave expedition, from left: Ron Shimelmitz, Kobi Vardi and Amit GabbayCredit: The Fureidis Cave Project
But there is the potential to find some remains in the impacted sediment filling the collapsed cavern because Shimelmitz, Vardi and the team will have the opportunity to excavate the cave at the appropriate academic leisure. That is because the authorities have been persuaded not to run the road into Fureidis through the site, but over it. They are building a bridge.
Why are they building a bridge here at vast expense, rather than doing a salvage excavation, hurriedly extracting what they can, and moving on?
Because Israel may be crawling with caves but ones firmly placed between the Acheulean and the Mousterian – that is, the time of the Acheulo-Yabrudian complex – are rare: just seven! "There are a few more in Syria and Lebanon," he adds, but Israeli researchers can't access those. Others like Zuttiyeh were dug up 100 years ago.So this newly unveiled one bears proper investigation.
"Why is the period important? This is the end of the Lower Paleolithic, which began 2.6 million years ago" Shimelmitz explains. "On a larger scale, the timeframe of 400,000-300,000 years before present was a turning point in human evolution across different parts of the world. In the next period, we find more complex humans like Neanderthals and Homo sapiens and find more complex behaviors.
Animal bones at FureidisCredit: Ruth SchusterAnimal bones at FureidisCredit: Ruth Schuster
"The Acheulo-Yabrudian shows the sparks of these transformations. A window into how these processes were accelerating. We see for example more intense use of fire and people living in bigger groups and for longer time together."
How can we know that hominins began living in bigger groups? More intense use of fire, and more garbage, which together provide more intense signs of site occupation, he explains. He further adds that the issue is not so straightforward, as one must also take into account the duration over which waste accumulated. Nothing is ever simple when it comes to reconstructing the past.
The Acheulo-Yabrudian petting zoo
No hominin bones have been found in Fureidis Cave (yet), no signs of fire other than stone tools bearing burning marks, one still in situ whose dark red hue indicates that it had been exposed to fire, perhaps intentionally.
Stone tool, suspected of having been burned, in situCredit: Ruth SchusterStone tool, suspected of having been burned, in situCredit: Ruth Schuster
Getting to the site involves parking in a parking lot in Fureidis and trekking up the hill. Like at zoos where you can caress a goat or rabbit, here too the archaeologists have attractions for visitors, to see with their own two eyes and touch with their own ten fingers – hand axes and typical side scrapers. Some are large, others small; some are finely crafted, while others are more crudely shaped. Together, they illustrate the remarkable technological variability that characterized the site's inhabitants. The odd blade also pops out of the impacted soil, from the following period of the Middle Paleolithic at the most upper part of the site.
"It's our own Yabrudian petting zoo," Vardi jokes, and hands me tools: hand axes, scrapers and a blade. Vardi gives over an especially hefty hand axe, pointing out how it was knapped bifacially – meaning on both sides – and a scraper, which was knapped on only one side.
I pat them. The edges are remarkably sharp considering the passage of time. Some are pretty, if not at the level of the stunning tools found not far from there, in Sakhnin Valley.
An aesthetically pleasing hand axeCredit: Ruth SchusterAn aesthetically pleasing hand axeCredit: Ruth Schuster
Who might the resident hominins have been? The most parsimonious hypothesis is that the occupants of all Acheulean-Yabrudian sites belonged to the same hominin population, whose morphological traits show affinities with early Neanderthals and have recently been interpreted as representing pre-Neanderthals. However, given the extreme scarcity of human remains from Acheuleo-Yabrudian sites, the identity of the early human populations that occupied these sites remains uncertain.
"We're in the space between Europe, Asia and Africa and there was a lot of hominin movement here. But there is no reason to think each site was peopled by someone different," Vardi points out.
In Africa multiple hominins clearly coexisted, and we know that late Neanderthals and early Homo sapiens had periods of overlap in Europe and in Israel; there are even ancient specimens that archaeologists believe were first-generation Neanderthal-human hybrids, such as the child of Skhul Cave from 140,000 years ago. But when Fureidis Cave was in use, it seems early Neanderthals or the pre-Neanderthals were alone here in the land.
Tooth of ancient deer found in the context of Fureidis Cave: He would have been eaten.Credit: Emil Aladjem / Israel Antiquities AuthorityTooth of ancient deer found in the context of Fureidis Cave: He would have been eaten.Credit: Emil Aladjem / Israel Antiquities Authority
The best-preserved skeletal remain from that time is the "Galilee Man" at Zuttiyeh, in the Upper Galilee. The hominin skull discovered there in 1925 came from the Acheulo-Yabrudian period too, the Middle Pleistocene and although it was not clearly assigned to a specific species, early Neanderthal or pre-Neanderthals are its most common affiliations. Though, as human remains are extremely rare among the Acheulo-Yabrudian sites the question who exactly where the sites population remains open, Shimelmitz stresses.
A well-crafted hand axe found at Fureidis. The edges still cutCredit: Emil Aladjem / Israel Antiquities AuthorityA well-crafted hand axe found at Fureidis. The edges still cutCredit: Emil Aladjem / Israel Antiquities Authority
From Neanderthals to Romans
It's true that science has found evidence of some early Homo sapiens ventures into Europe and mixing with Neanderthals about 250,000 and about 150,000 years ago. But Fureidis' Acheulo-Yabrudian layers predated all that. The later occupation at the site, however, ascribed to the Middle Paleolithic, may offer new insight into this episode as well.
All we know is once there were other human species and now there aren't, which is sad, though the chances are ten to one that we would have condescended to them.
The only real options at this point in time to investigate the prehistoric Acheulo-Yabrudian complex in high resolution are Qesem Cave and now this one that is found in the Carmel ridge next to some of the most important prehistoric sites that were documented in the Levant, Shimelmitz and Vardi sum up. Hence the IAA battle to not settle for a salvage excavation and beetle off with just some data, but to enable research into human evolution at this cave for decades to come.
Note that to build a bridge sparing the site, one has to know how long the cave stretches under the hill surface. Since its roof collapsed in dim prehistory, that isn't obvious, but the team has managed to stake out what they believe its area was. "Our excavation shows that it's much bigger than had been initially thought," Vardi observes.
It will take many moons to crack the palimpsest of this ancient site, but already Shimelmitz and Vardi say they suspect different parts of the cave served for different purposes at different times, as caves did. The team can identify at least six layers of occupation: five are Acheulo-Yabrudian and the latest is, indeed, Mousterian. Each represents a series of occupations, they add.
Some of the tools from Fureidis, attesting to a span of occupationCredit: Emil Aladjem / Israel Antiquities AuthoritySome of the tools from Fureidis, attesting to a span of occupationCredit: Emil Aladjem / Israel Antiquities Authority
Many moons after the early Neanderthals or whoever discovered the charms of the chalky terrain, the Romans would quarry limestone around the corner from the cave, and locals would carve out tombs in the quarry, as one does. "There were a lot of post-early hominin activities here and lots of modern junk," he observes, noting that we and the Romans are hominins. "We had to remove everything carefully step by step."
I eye the bulldozer idling next to the foot of the bridge project perhaps 100 meters away and return my gaze to the living limestone cave, which probably began as a crack in the rock occupied by animals. As it grew, hominins moved in.During their time, its ceiling gradually collapsed, starting from the mouth. By the Mousterian period, the opening to the cave was meters from its original place. At all times the spring would probably have been the main attraction, as it was in some other Paleolithic sites, Shimelmitz says.
The earliest known occupation of caves goes back 2 million years, to South Africa. But more often, use was gradual; and in the Levant the Acheulo-Yabrudian involved more frequent use of caves as basecamps. "Something changed in the way we lived and exploited the environment at the Acheulo-Yabrudian complex," Shimelmitz adds.
Geologist Nimrod Wieler notes that we aren't talking about rain; water was penetrating through the limestone cliff, leading to the deposit of white sediments inside the space. That dandy spring might have been right inside the cave.
Now that modern development has decided to go over the cave rather than through it, one day, we may actually know for sure.
