A contribution to late Middle Paleolithic chronology of the Levant: New luminescence ages for the Atlit Railway Bridge site, Coastal Plain, Israel

摘要

The Atlit Railway Bridge (ARB) prehistoric site is located on the northern coastal plain of Israel, within natural caves which formed in calcareous aeolianites (kurkar), perhaps during a high sea-stand. Flint artifacts belonging to the Levantine later Mousterian tradition and faunal remains were found embedded in the kurkar infill of two caves. The aeolianites in which the caves had developed were previously constrained by IRSL50 dating of feldspars to be older than the last interglacial highest sea-stand (Frechen M. et al., 2004; Chronology of Pleistocene sedimentary cycles in the Carmel Coastal Plain of Israel. Quaternary International 121, 1-52), providing a maximum age for the artifacts.