Neanderthals in the Levant ― Behavioral Organization and the Beginnings of Human Modernity

Archaeologists based in the US, Ukraine, and Britain report on expeditions in Jordan in 1993 and 1994. They say that the biologic data suggest that Neanderthals were an offshoot of the human lineage, but the question of the degree to which archaic and modern populations differed in cognition and behavior still remains crucially important, because the differences may provide a key for understanding Neanderthal extinction. After setting out the issues and debates about the emergence of modern humans and the role of the Levant in that debate, they focus on Tor Faraj, in southern Jordan, as a case study, and summarize their conclusions about social organization there during the Late Pleistocene. Annotation c2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Donald O. Henry is Professor of Anthropology at the University of Tulsa. He is the author of several books and numerous articles covering his over twenty-five years of archaeological research on prehistoric human ecology in the Near East.