A cave in northern Israel that was sealed for hundreds of thousands of years has revealed a treasure trove of remains from a mysterious prehistoric era just before the emergence of Neanderthals and modern humans, the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) said Thursday.

The site is located near the town of Fureidis, south of Haifa. Its occupation dates to between 400,000 and 250,000 years ago, when groups of hominids gathered in larger, more active communities than in earlier times. Experts refer to this period in the Levant as the Acheulo-Yabrudian culture.

“This is probably the last culture of a very long continuum [of cultures],” Dr. Kobi Vardi, head of the IAA Prehistory Branch and co-director of excavations, told The Times of Israel over the telephone. “Between 250,000 years and 50,000 years ago, Homo sapiens and Neanderthals created a totally different culture, so we are right in the moment of transition.”

According to Vardi, the site was first identified by researchers mapping prehistoric sites across the Carmel region several decades ago and attributed to the Middle Paleolithic (roughly 250,000 to 50,000 years ago).

However, archaeologists from the IAA and the University of Haifa found evidence that it was occupied earlier than that, thanks to a wealth of stone tools and rarely well-preserved animal bones.

“The original roof of the cave disintegrated and crashed down, and the site was covered by very large boulders, in addition to soil and dense vegetation,” Vardi said.

The collapse protected the cave and its contents until today, prompting researchers to describe the site as a form of “time capsule” preserving prehistoric remains.

The team started excavating the site about six months ago, ahead of construction works to build a new road to enter Fureidis. In Israel, all construction works must be........

© The Times of Israel