Near East Kingdoms

Emireh Culture (Upper Palaeolithic) (Near East)
c.100,000 / 40,000 - 30,000 BC

Palaeolithic Cultures Early Africa (Intro) Early Americas (Intro) Early Asia (Intro) Early China (Intro) Early Europe (Intro) Early Near East (Intro) Early Oceania (Intro)

The Near East's Emireh (or Emiran) was an Upper Palaeolithic (Late Old Stone Age) culture in the Levant. It developed from the local Mousterian but, unlike that culture, it has no recognisable African cultural influences, potentially making it the Levant's first home-grown culture.

This culture is especially interesting as it charts human progress up to the point at which the most recent ice age was building to a peak (very severely in Europe and less so in Central Asia), and shortly after the last of Europe's Neanderthals had died out. Now humans had no cultural competition except from other humans, provided of course that they could survive another fifteen thousand years of ice age (see the 'Prehistoric World' index for information on pre-modern human Earth, via the link on the right).

The relationship between the Emireh and the neighbouring Baradostian remains unclear. Its flint spear tips are local in design, along with its range of other stone tools which include curved knives which resemble those of Europe's Châtelperronian.

Furthermore, the Emireh is generally seen as a transition culture which bridged the gap between the Neanderthal-originated Mousterian and later, wholly Homo sapiens cultures. The similar and contemporary Bohunician in Europe has the same footing. While a general date of 40,000-30,000 BC can certainly apply to the culture, it has been assigned dates which stretch back as far as 100,000 BC as researchers attempt to employ it to cover the entirety of early Homo sapiens presence in the Levant.

It is also central to the idea of an early Levant corridor through which early human groups accessed Europe from around 47,000 BC (or perhaps a little earlier). Such a role would certainly account for similarities in some of the tools being used by European cultures such as the Châtelperronian.

However, a good deal of debate and disagreement about the Emireh's precise role, nature, and timeline remains after many decades of disagreement. This culture seems to have been influential in the formation of the short-lived Ahmarian culture, but its influences can also be seen in the Levantine Aurignacian which succeeded it.

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(Information by Peter Kessler, with additional information from Palaeolithic Hominin Remains from Eshkaft-e Gavi (Southern Zagros Mountains, Iran), J E Scott, from Makers of the Early Aurignacian of Europe, Steven E Churchill & Fred H Smith (Yearbook of Physical Anthropology Vol 43:61-115 (2000)), from The Palaeolithic Prehistory of the Zagros-Taurus, Harold L Dibble, from Eighty Years of Iranian Archaeology Vols 1 & 2, Yousef Hassanzadeh & Sima Miri (Eds), from Middle Palaeolithic Symbolism: A Review of Current Evidence and Interpretations, P G Chase & H L Dibble (Journal of Anthropological Archaeology No 6, 1987), and from External Links: Encyclopaedia Britannica, and Encyclopaedia of Human Evolution and Prehistory, Second Edition, N Benco, A S Brooks, E Delson, C Kramer, & J J Shea (PDF, an extract of 700 pages, 2000), and Makers of the Early Aurignacian of Europe, Steven E Churchill & Fred H Smith (2000), and Science, and Platform Variability & Flake Morphology, H L Dibble (PDF), and Bradshaw Foundation: Origins. and TalkOrigins, and Fossilised bones found in Israel (The Guardian), and Homo sapiens jaw wound points to possible violence (Archaeology News Online Magazine.)

c.100,000 BC

Finds announced in 2021 relate to the discovery of fossilised human bones, alongside stone tools, and ox, deer, and horse remains. Nicknamed the Nesher Ramla Homo group, the finds come from the prehistoric site of the same name near Ramla in Israel.

The bones were found in an ancient sink hole at the prehistoric site of Nesher Ramla near the city of Ramla in Israel

The human bones have a distinctive combination of Neanderthal and early human features. The anatomy of the bones is more primitive than those from contemporaneous Neanderthals in Eurasia and other Homo sapiens groups which have also managed to make their way into the Levant.

c.90,000 BC

An AD 2026 study of a human fossil from Qafzeh cave in Israel identifies one of the oldest-known healed injuries which have been caused by a sharp object. The research provides a rare look at violence, health, and burial customs amongst early Homo sapiens who live in the Levant at this time.

The fossil bears a thin cut-like injury on the left-hand side of the lower jaw. The wound reaches one of the lower premolar teeth. The shape of the damage matches an injury which could be made by a sharp object instead of damage which could occur caused after death. Whether the injury is accidental or deliberately inflicted is not known. The fossil itself is dated between 143,000-90,000 BC.

The 'Qafzeh 25' skull and mandible fossil remains were studied by researchers, with AD 2026 results revealing a small diagonal cut beneath the fifth lower tooth from the left

c.49,000 BC

In support of the general pattern of entering the Near East, modern humans have been doing so since at least 120,000 BC according to fossils of archaic modern humans at the Skhul and Qafzeh caves in Israel. Instead, their presence remains firmly rooted in Africa, with seemingly occasional forays into the Near East which perhaps only last a few generations at a time before fading out or retreating back.

However, researchers still see the Near East as a likely place for early encounters between Homo sapiens and Neanderthals. Fossils in Israel, such as a forty-nine thousand year-old Neanderthal at Tabun cave, may belong to people who are alive at the time of unions between the two groups, or just afterwards.

The teeth in the 185,000 year old Israeli specimens were in the upper size range of what is seen in modern humans, suggesting that some evolutionary experimentation may still have been going on with these specimens

Could such unions be the way in which Homo sapiens gains a more permanent foothold in the Near East, or have they now become more technically advanced than the Neanderthals who have dominated the hunting here for well over two hundred thousand years?

c.37,000 BC

The latter part of the Interpleniglacial (or Middle Würm glaciation) is marked by the Hengelo/Denekamp temperate period between 37,000-27,000 BC. It is during this relatively warm and wet interval that the Mousterian culture and Neanderthals disappear.

Initial Upper Palaeolithic (IUP) cultures also proliferate - such as the Emireh-related Ahmarian culture - and then quickly disappear, and the Aurignacian / Baradostian cultures emerge. Modern humans now enter Europe from the Near East and become established there, possibly using the Emireh culture as an access corridor.

Stone tools of the Emireh culture in the Levant, ascribed as the first local culture which was wholly created by Homo sapiens as opposed to the preceding Mousterian, which had Neanderthal origins