Paleolithic chic: 500,000 years ago, Israel’s ancient toolmakers had a taste for sparkle |
Ancient humans who lived in northern Israel around 500,000 years ago intentionally selected special stones with fossilized animals or crystal formations to craft beautiful tools featuring them as decorations, a new study published in the peer-reviewed Tel Aviv Journal of the Institute of Archaeology of Tel Aviv University (TAU) on Tuesday has shown.
The study presents the results of a survey of the Sakhnin Valley in the Lower Galilee, where hundreds of Lower Paleolithic hand axes have been found, including some 15 that exhibit special features, TAU Prof. Ran Barkai, lead author of the paper, told The Times of Israel in a video interview.
According to Barkai, the number is especially remarkable, since only a handful of individual artifacts with this kind of characteristic had previously been unearthed worldwide.
Barkai believes that these tools prove that those ancient humans were interested in their tools not just for their functionality. Rather, they displayed a sense of aesthetic or symbolic belief system, as the special geological features remain visible in a prominent position at the center of each hand ax, suggesting that the knapping process was carried out in a way to highlight them.
The artifacts were discovered by chance by the co-author of the paper, Muataz Shalata, a resident of the Arab town of Sakhnin in northern Israel.
“Everybody thinks that all archaeological sites in Israel, at least those on the surface, have already been discovered and are well known,” Barkai said. “However, no one knew about Sahnin. Muataz, an autodidact nature lover, came across these distinctive stones and contacted the Israel Antiquities Authority, and then me.”
Barkai, one of Israel’s top experts in prehistoric archaeology, first visited Sakhnin in 2023. At first, he thought the site was interesting but in no way extraordinary.
“I have excavated several sites, and I have seen hundreds of hand axes,” he said, explaining that there are many locations featuring these artifacts in large numbers in........