Who/What chased the elephants out from the Southern Levant
Date: 31.01.2014
Time: 17:00 - 18:00
Speaker: Dr. Rivka Rabinovich
Location: John Wymer Lab. 65A (Avenue Campus)
Proboscideans, the largest existing terrestrial mammals, with their distinctive body sizes, morphologies, feeding habits, population structures and home ranges, are by far more influential on environments than any other terrestrial animal species. Because of their large-scale anatomical characteristics, proboscideans tended to survive in the fossil record and leave clear imprints on it. Consequently, their significance in that record goes far beyond that of any other group of terrestrial mammals. The presence of proboscideans in Pleistocene archaeological sites has been the subject of numerous studies worldwide, and their relationship with hominins is one of the focal points in Middle Pleistocene research. In any case, there is indisputable evidence for butchery of proboscidean species in various sites. There is no evidence of proboscideans in any clear Acheulo-Yabrudian context or in any early Middle Paleolithic one in the southern Levant, this situation is very different from that in Eurasia where they continue to appear in the Paleolithic archaeological record until much laterĀ (at least until MIS 3). Ā Various scenarios were suggested to explain this phenomenon – environmental or over hunting. To date, it is premature to suggest one simple explanation to the absence of elephants in the archaeological record at the end of the Lower Paleolithic in the southern Levant.