Shifting ideas about the middle palaeolithic history of the levant

In an era where archaeological research is increasingly dominated by the application of costly, high-tech analytical techniques, we run the risk of neglecting the detailed reconstruction of human behaviour that informs on ancient lived experience. This re-issue of a 2003 volume on the site of Tor Faraj is in 2023 a delightful anachronism as it focuses on the craft of archaeology, employing multi-stranded analytical strategies to arrive at a meticulous reconstruction of a few days in the life of a group of Middle Palaeolithic hunter-gatherers. The objective: to see if habitation at Tor Faraj was characterized by a differentiated use of space. This is proposed to be characteristic of the complex ways of life in which modern humans structure their settlements. Alternatively, the material remains of the stays at the rockshelter could be homogenously distributed throughout the excavated area. This spatially unstructured way of behaviour is generally taken to characterize 'archaic' humans. As the inhabitants at the site are presumed to be Neanderthals (no bone is preserved so no fossils available), the latter would be the default expectation. In this review article, I introduce the volume on of Tor Faraj and summarise the archaeological results. I then contextualise these in view of changes in the field in the 20 years since the volume was originally published. In that time, the interpretative frame in which the excavation results have to be placed has become far more complex, but the review also shows that detailed data such as presented at Tor Faraj are of great value to start resolving some of the current open questions in the area.