- 11:00
With their layered sediments, Mandrin Cave in the Rhône Valley and the rock shelter of Ksar Akil in the Antelias Valley offer a vivid record of human history and migration to Europe from the Levant.
In the Levant, Europe’s story took a decisive turn. Here, Homo sapiens from Africa first encountered Neanderthals – exchanging ideas, stone and bone technologies, body ornaments, cold-weather survival strategies, and even genes. From this region, modern humans began their relatively swift spread into Europe some 50,000 to 40,000 years ago.
Driven south by a series of glacial phases beginning 120,000 years ago, Neanderthals sought refuge in the Levant. The Homo sapiens populations they encountered upon arrival eventually disappeared. But interbreeding resumed with new waves of humans arriving from Africa around 60,000 years ago. These newcomers laid the foundation for the material cultures that would spread across Europe – among them the Aurignacian, dating from roughly 47,000 to 41,000 years before present. The Mousterian, a material culture that endured for hundreds of thousands of years (from around 350,000 to 35,000 years ago), was practiced by Homo sapiens in North Africa, by Neanderthals in Europe and – most notably – by both in the Levant. Mount Lebanon and Mount Carmel still bear traces of this shared human story.
Two Open Books of Human History
Two shelters emerge like open books, revealing humanity’s story. Mandrin Cave represents the Rhône corridor, while the rock shelter of Ksar Akil stands for the Antelias Valley and, more broadly, Mount Lebanon. This Lebanese cradle served as the place where Homo sapiens adapted after leaving Africa and interbred with Neanderthals before spreading acrossEurope. From here, they followed the Mediterranean coast, moving northward along routes such as the Danube and Rhône corridors.
Ludovic Slimak, a CNRS researcher at the University of Toulouse, led the excavation of Mandrin Cave in the Rhône Valley. The site’s Layer E pushed back the presence of “modern” Homo sapiens in Western Europe to around 54,000 years ago. It also uncovered evidence of alternating occupations by both African and European hominin species. Similar to Antelias, this was not a story of replacement but of coexistence.
Mandrin Cave reflects the broader cultural tradition of the Rhône Valley known as the Neronian, while several of its features also echo those of the Antelias Valley.
Antelias Rock Shelter
These parallels led Slimak and his team, in 2016, to the Peabody Museum at Harvard, where the chipped fossils from Ksar Akil shelter in Antelias are preserved. Discovered in 1900 by Godefroy Zumoffen, the site lies at the heart of the Levant – a cradle of humanity beyond Africa. The layers of this rock shelter offer a rich record of Homo sapiens’ expansion and their encounter with Homo neanderthalensis. Mandrin Cave, especially its Layer E, extends this narrative of Sapiens’ northward journey along the Rhône corridor, connecting the Mediterranean basin to continental Europe.
Slimak put forward a Levant-Europe parallel, linking the Neronian culture and the early Upper Paleolithic (dated between 50,000 to 40,000 years ago) as parts of a single continuum. To better understand the 15,000 years of coexistence before Neanderthals disappeared, he focused on the Ksar Akil site in the Antelias Valley – which he described as “an open book.”
The Layers of Ksar Akil
A 25-meter-thick stack of layers lays out the chronology of Paleolithic populations over the past 60,000 years. Layer by layer, it reveals the story of the last out-of-Africa migration – the one that gave rise to modern humanity.
In the deepest layers (XXXII to XXVI), Mousterian material culture emerges – linked by researchers to Neanderthal remains found across Europe. Level XXVII has been dated to between 51,000 and 49,000 years before present. Higher up, and thus more recent (layers XXV to XX), the technical progression of the earliest Levantine Homo sapiens societies of the Upper Paleolithic becomes increasingly evident. Levels XIII to V correspond to the Levantine Aurignacian, while layers VIII to VII are dated to between 30,000 and 29,000 years before present.
Drawing on the chronological sequences at Ksar Akil, Slimak highlighted a parallel between the three phases of technical development among Levantine Homo sapiens and the material cultures of Europe. His theory identifies three distinct migration waves into Europe originating from the Levantine cradle.
Three Waves of Migration
He situates the first migration wave of Homo sapiens into Europe between 60,000 and 50,000 years before present, drawing parallels between the Levantine Upper Paleolithic and the European Neronian, as well as isolated transitional cultures stretching from the Rhône Valley to Ukraine. This connection is illustrated by the similarity between the arrowheads from Mandrin Cave and those found in layers XXV to XXI at Ksar Akil.
The second migration wave corresponds to the Châtelperronian in Europe and the Early Ahmarian of the northern Levant, represented by layers XVII to XVI at Ksar Akil.
The third migration wave is identified as the Protoaurignacian, corresponding to the Early Ahmarian of the southern Levant.
The End of Lebanon’s Role
American archaeologists excavated the Ksar Akil site in the 1930s and 1940s, followed by Jacques Tixier from 1969 until the outbreak of the Lebanese Civil War in 1975. Since then, the site has become inaccessible. It was partially destroyed in 1994 and continues to suffer from uncontrolled urban development and construction permits issued by a corrupt administration.
Long known for its archaeological excavations, Lebanon was once a pioneer in prehistoric research thanks to the Jesuit fathers. However, the targeted assassinations of these scholars during the early years of the war, between 1975 and 1978, the destruction or military occupation of archaeological sites by Syrian forces and affiliated militias, and the economic decline of Lebanon, including its universities from 2019 onward, brought this scientific endeavor to a halt. Finally, the August 4, 2020 port explosion severely damaged the important prehistoric museum at Saint Joseph University.
Currently, Israel leads research on Homo sapiens and Homo neanderthalensis in the Levant. At Manot Cave in Western Galilee, a Homo sapiens skullcap dating to roughly 54,000 years ago was discovered. This fossil provides clear evidence of interbreeding with Homo neanderthalensis in the Levant, shortly after our ancestors left Africa.
A Shared Human Heritage
Little is known today about Lebanon’s remarkable archaeological sites, among which 13 date back to the Lower Paleolithic, 45 to the Middle Paleolithic and 39 to the Upper Paleolithic.
Today, little is known about the eight-year-old child discovered at Ksar Akil, dating to more than 35,000 years ago, or about the rhinoceros remains found in another cavity of the Antelias Valley. Equally striking are the flint tools from the Paleolithic site of Borj Qinnarit in Sidon, which testify to a lithic industry dating back 700,000 years. Other significant sites include Ras Beirut, notably Dalieh, as well as Tell Laboueh in the Beqaa Valley, Qleiate in Kesrwan and the megaliths of Menjez in Akkar. Lebanese research centers have even studied the Homs region in Syria, including the site of Bouqaia. All these sites remain vital to humanity’s heritage and are increasingly at risk.
Comments