Product Code Database
El Wad is an archaeological site of the Epipalaeolithic Near East in Mount Carmel, Israel. The site has two components: El Wad Cave, also known as Mughārat al-Wād () or HaNahal Cave (); and El Wad Terrace, located immediately outside the cave.
Together with the nearby sites of Tabun Cave, Jamal Cave, and Skhul Cave, el Wad is part of the Nahal Me'arot Nature Reserve, a national park and UNESCO World Heritage Site.
The following year, the Department of Antiquities asked Dorothy Garrod to suspend her excavations at Shuqba cave to deal with the "urgent matter" of investigating the el-Mughara caves. Garrod directed large-scale excavations at El Wad for the next six years. She quickly recognised similarities between the stone tools found at El Wad and her previous excavations at Shuqba cave, naming the newly discovered industry the Natufian culture, after Wadi en-Natuf near Shuqba, and tentatively linking it to the European Mesolithic, based on the fact that both used microlithic technology. Garrod began her excavations with Lambert's soundings and extended them cover most of the interior of the cave and exterior terrace.
In 1980-1981, François Valla and Ofer Bar-Yosef conducted brief excavations on the terrace to re-examine Garrod's stratigraphy. In 1988–1989, Mina Weinstein-Evron excavated a small area at the back of the cave that had not been removed by Garrod. Large-scale excavations of the terrace resumed in 1994, directed by Weinstein-Evron, Daniel Kaufman, and Reuven Yeshurun of the Zinman Institute of Archaeology, and are ongoing.
|
|
