A Reconstruction of the Taphonomic History of GBY
This chapter aims to reconstruct the taphonomic processes that influenced the assemblages of Layers V-5 and V-6, as well as to identify the taphonomic role of particular agents that may have influenced the fossil bones and the stone artifacts deposited in these layers, and considers these results vis-a-vis other data, both from the site and experimental.
Reconstructing Site-Formation Processes at GBY—The Experiments
A set of experiments were initiated to gain qualitative insight into the processes of bone modification and to assess the timing of the biostratonomic chronology at Gesher Benot Ya‘aqov (GBY). Based on the results of the experiments, models for the internal operational sequence of an abrasional process due to water movement and trampling are presented. These models help to disentangle the taphonomic history at the site and have tremendous implications for future studies in bone taphonomy.
The Acheulian Site of Gesher Benot Ya‘aqov
Gesher Benot Ya‘aqov (GBY) is located in the southern Hula Valley, which, in turn, is located in the northernmost segment of the Dead Sea Rift, part of the Great African Rift System. This region is an integral part of the “Levantine Corridor,” a land bridge connecting Africa and Europe, through which the diffusion and biotic exchange of many organisms took place in prehistoric times. The Hula Valley has preserved data of a phenomenon of great importance in human history: archaeological evidence recording hominin diffusion/migration out of Africa and into Eurasia. The unique sedimentological and hydrological conditions prevailing in the Hula, along with extensive and intensive tectonic activ…
Materials and Methodology
Analysis of the animal bones from Area C and the JB entails taxonomic identification followed by morphometric, taphonomic, and surface-modification analyses. Emphasis was also placed on a series of experiments, whose methodology is described below.
Testing heterogeneity in faunal assemblages from archaeological sites. Tumbling and trampling experiments at the early-Middle Pleistocene site of Gesher Benot Ya’aqov (Israel)
Abstract The current paper reports an experimental case study to test the heterogeneity of faunal assemblages from the Early-Middle Pleistocene Layers V-5 and V-6 of the Gesher Benot Ya’aqov Acheulian site (Israel). Tumbling and trampling experiments were initiated to gain qualitative insight into processes of bone modification and to assess the timing of the biostratonomic chronology, as it was assumed that both mechanisms were responsible for the formation of striations documented on the bone surfaces from the site. The tumbling experiments mimicked sediment movement in a calm lacustrine shoreline environment whereas the trampling experiments investigate the role of animal/hominin activit…