A cave in Israel reveals a forgotten society that lived 400,000 years ago and buried its dead

Construction crews in northern Israel were about to break ground near a small town called Fureidis when archaeologists asked for one more look before the digging started. This decision led to one of the most important prehistoric discoveries in decades, a cave sealed off from the outside world for 400,000 years.

The Israel Antiquities Authority and the University of Haifa researchers discovered flint tools, including hand axes, scrapers, and blades, that pushed the age of the cave back much further than anyone expected, CNN reports. Archaeologist Kobi Vardi said his team had originally dated the site to about 200,000 years ago, citing research from the 1970s.

New analysis by Vardi and his colleague Ron Shimelmitz, an associate professor of archaeology at the University of Haifa, reveals that people were actually using this cave as far back as 400,000 years ago, and the assemblage includes about a hundred side scrapers as well as small, sharply made handaxes and blades. They also found fallow deer, gazelle, ancient horse and wild cattle bones, which suggest hunting and processing at a spring-fed site that had been sealed beneath boulders, soil and vegetation for hundreds of thousands of years.


Why this discovery caught researchers off guard
For American readers used to stories about Neanderthals and early Homo sapiens, this cave is older than both. The people who used it were part of the Acheulo-Yabrudian culture, a group of hominins who lived in the Levant, the region that includes modern-day Israel, Lebanon, Jordan, and Syria, sometime between 400,000 and 250,000 years ago. Think of them as a kind of missing-link generation, living right before Neanderthals and modern humans spread across the globe.

Vardi called it “a big surprise” to learn that the cave was about twice as old as previously thought, according to CNN. Shimelmitz described it as “a unique site of global importance,” adding that it belongs to a rare window at the end of the Lower Paleolithic era, right before Neanderthals and modern humans became dominant across many regions.

Life inside the cave looked surprisingly organized
In addition to the stone tools, the team also found bones from fallow deer and gazelle, animals that would have been hunted and eaten by the inhabitants of the cave. Shimelmitz said it indicates large groups living together, hunting and using fire, evidence of what he called “complex and rich camp life.”

That fire count compares well with other peer-reviewed investigations in the same area. The study, ‘'Fire at will': the emergence of habitual fire use 350,000 years ago,’ published in the Journal of Human Evolution says researchers looking at a 16-meter-deep sequence of deposits in Tabun Cave, also on Mount Carmel near Haifa, found that fire use went from occasional and opportunistic to regular and habitual sometime between 350,000 and 320,000 years ago, within the same broad window as the occupation of the Fureidis cave. That earlier work helps explain why fire traces at Fureidis matter. It suggests fire had become a regular part of life at these caves, though exactly how that shaped day-to-day routines is still something researchers are working out.

No human remains yet, but researchers are hopeful
There’s one thing that keeps this story from being all wrapped up. As CNN notes, despite years of excavation at Acheulo-Yabrudian sites throughout the region, no major human remains from this particular period have ever been found at any cave. Vardi said his team is keeping its fingers crossed that Fureidis will be the exception. “We're very anxious to meet them,” he said, referring to whoever once called this cave home.

Outside experts also see value in the discovery. Armando Falcucci, a lecturer in paleolithic archaeology at the University of Southampton who wasn’t involved in the excavation, told CNN that the discovery brings focus back to a period of human history that gets overlooked between the more popular stories of Neanderthals and modern humans: roughly 400,000 to 200,000 years ago. He pointed to the fire evidence specifically, noting that habitual, controlled fire use becomes clearly visible in the archaeological record right around this period, marking a major behavioral shift.

Catriona Pickard, a professor of prehistory at the University of Edinburgh, who was also not involved in the dig, told CNN the site has the potential to reshape how scientists understand daily life in the Lower Paleolithic Levant.

The cave survived thanks to a bridge
Here is the twist that makes this story especially satisfying. Archaeologists' findings prompted the construction company to alter its plans. The builders decided that they would not pave over the site, but instead build a road bridge over the cave so that it could be preserved for future research and so that the project could go ahead.

Vardi said the site is just beginning to be studied in depth, a process that is likely to take several years. According to The Times of Israel, a handful of Acheulo-Yabrudian sites have ever been found in Israel and the wider Levant, and most are inaccessible for research. The paper notes that the cave was excavated only because salvage work began ahead of a new road project, and that its preservation is exceptional: the site is one of roughly 10 known from this phase in the Near East, with only six in Israel, and the only one on the Carmel Ridge in pristine condition. Vardi said the team has so far recovered about a hundred of the most common side scrapers, and expects more extensive digging to continue in future seasons.

That makes Fureidis an important window into life just before Neanderthals and modern humans became widespread.