TL Dates of Burnt Flints from Jelinek's Excavations at Tabun and their Implications

A selection of 37 burnt flints from Jelinek's excavations at Tabun were dated by thermoluminescence. The results indicate that the bottom of unit I (Garrod's Layer C) should be given an age of 171±17 ky bp(transition from oxygen isotope stage 7 to 6) and that units XIII to II (Layers Ed to D) were deposited between c. 330 and 210 ky bp, i.e.during the oxygen isotope stages 9-8 and the beginning of 7. These dates raise the possibility that: (a) a pre-Würmian Neanderthal population may have settled in the Levant during the oxygen isotope stage 6, and that (b) the transition from Mugharan (Acheuleo-Yabrudian, Yabrudian and Amudian) to Levallois Mousterian type lithic industries occurred at the end of stage 8, more than 200 ky ago. These early dates, whose reliability was consistent with isochron analysis of the data, are not that different from those now accepted for the development of the Levallois Mousterian industries in Europe.