Ubeidiya
1:
UBEIDIYA (M.R. 205232). A prehistoric site on the W bank of the JORDAN RIVER about 3 km S of Lake Kinneret (Lake Tiberias). It is a large exposure of a Lower Pleistocene formation, originally called by L. Picard after the common freshwater shell in the deposit, designated as “Melanopsis stufe.” It was renamed the Ubeidiya Formation following the archaeological excavations (1960–74), which provided long vertical exposures.
The excavations uncovered a composite sequence, about 150 m thick, which contained a series of archaeological horizons. Bones and shells were preserved in many of the layers, which are now folded in the form of a small anticline with several undulations, lying at –160 to –225 m below sea level. The contorted and faulted situation made the systematic archaeological excavations a challenging project. As a result, only 14 archaeological horizons were extensively excavated over surfaces ranging from 60 to 250 m 2.
The lithic assemblages demonstrate a limited typological variability. The common artifacts are the core-choppers and the flakes, which are generally made of flint. Polyhedrons (core-choppers with more than two stiking platforms—also made from flint) were found in moderate frequencies. Sheroids were shaped from limestone cobbles and range widely in both size and weight. Handaxes, trihedrals, and picks were mainly made of basalt but with a considerable representation of limestone and flint. The specific choice for raw material possibly took into account the needed size and the efficient cutting edge. On the whole, basalt and limestone cobbles were more abundant than the flint cobbles and pebbles. All the used raw material was available on the beaches of Lake Ubeidiya and in the wadi channels which descended from the W escarpment of the Jordan Rift.
In the lower archaeological horizons only core-choppers, polyhedrons, and soperoids are common (layers III-12 through II-24), while in the rest of the sequence bifaces appear in small percentages except for layer K-30, which is a gravel deposit rich in bifaces. According to African terminology, both Oldowan, Developed Oldowan, and Early Acheulian were represented in Ubeidiya. Naming the entire sequence as Early Acheulian will be in line with the current notion that members of the Homo erectus family, the bearers of the Acheulian Industrial Complex, were the hominids who moved out of Africa. Only a few fragmentary hominid remains were recovered at the site. Except for one incisor, they all were found on the surface. They were attributed to Homo sp. indet.
The fauna from Ubeidiya includes various mammalian species, reptiles, birds, and mollusks. Many of the bones and shells only came to rest in the deposits from which they were retrieved, and their actual habitat was either in the lake, on the hilly slopes, or upstream in the wadis. Their presence enabled the reconstruction of a very variable landscape in which these early hominids survived. It encompassed an oak-covered plateau with dry wadis descending into the lake. The slopes were partially forested and partially rocky exposures. Grassy meadows separated the hilly area from the open freshwater lake where thickets of reeds and some tamarisk formed a delta covered with pebbles and cobbles. A small lagoon stretched N of the delta. The common species, as represented by bone counts, were the hippopotamus, two species of deer, and two species of horses. However, other large- and medium-size mammals were the elephant, the rhinoceros, a giant sheep, two antelopes, thirteen species of carnivores, including bear, wolf, and lynx, one primate (other than humans), and a large number of rodents. Among these, the Mediterranean species and those which subsist in wetlands were the most common. A large number of birds, several reptiles, and a few molluscan species, some of which designate the lower Pleistocene age to the formation, complete the list. The fauna of Ubeidiya is a mixture of various geographic and ecological zones encompassing both the Eurasian world and a few African species.
Various authors have concluded that the fauna of Ubeidiya are younger than the Seneze fauna of W Europe or is of the same age as the end of Villanyian/basal Biharian in E Europe. These correlations mean that the age of the site should be estimated at 1.5–1.0 million years old. The preliminary paleomagnetic results indicate that it lies within the Matuyama Reversal Epoch. The similarity between the lithic industry of Olduval Bed II and that of Ubeidiya can be considered as additional support for the suggested date.
Ofer Bar-Yosef
Freedman, D. N. (1996, c1992). The Anchor Bible Dictionary (6:692). New York: Doubleday.
