Dederiyeh Cave
Location | Afrin |
---|---|
Region | Syria |
Coordinates | 36°24′00″N 36°52′00″E / 36.40000°N 36.86667°E |
Height | 450 m |
History | |
Periods | Middle Paleolithic |
Associated with | Neanderthal |
Site notes | |
Excavation dates | 1987 |
Archaeologists | Takeru Akazawa, Sultan Muhesen |
Dederiyeh Cave (
Description
The cave consists of a chamber, 15 meters wide and 8 meters high, rising up to 10 meters in the back where a chimney is a second exit, and 50 meters deep. The main entrance is north and overlooks the wadi.[2]
Excavations
Tentative excavations took place in 1989 and 1990, and more serious research started in 1993; it quickly yielded the remains of a Neanderthal child, about two years old, an almost complete set of remains. A second (partial) skeleton was found in 1997–1998, in a pit of 70x50 cm, filled with fine brown dirt in which flint were found. The researchers concluded that this also was intentionally buried.[2]
In all the remains of up to fifteen individuals have been found in the Middle Paleolithic layers of the cave. More than half of them were children.[2]
See also
- Fossil
- List of fossil sites (with link directory)
- List of human evolution fossils (with images)
References
- ^ Afrin Post (in Kurdish). Retrieved 01 May 2021.
- ^ .