ABSTRACT
Cave site located in the Wadi el-Hadj, southeast of Nazareth in Israel overlooking the Esdraelon Plain. Qafzeh is important because it preserves remains of early-modern humans in a Middle Paleolithic archaeological context. Qafzeh Cave was first excavated in the 1930s by R. Neuville, the French consul in Jerusalem, and M. Stekelis, an Israeli prehistorian. A second series of excavations at Qafzeh was directed by B. Vandermeersch in the late 1960s and 1970s. The cave is a large karst solution cavity that has been filled by spring sediments, alluvium, and rock scree. The interior of the cave was the focus of the Neuville-Stekelis excavations, while Vander-meersch's work concentrated on the terrace and area around the entrance to the cave (the vestibule). Different numbering systems for the excavated layers have been used in different areas of the site.
