Michmiche Gouffre

Description

Michmiche Gouffre is a Late Middle Palaeolithic site in Mount Lebanon that illustrates particular techno-typological configurations rarely addressed in the literature. The lithic material of this surface site displays a genuine coexistence of Levallois and volumetric blank production accompanied by both typical Middle- and Upper Palaeolithic tool types. The latter are freqeuntly produced on Levallois blanks. Together with more than 30 such sites in Lebanon and a handful of them in northern Israel this complex of late Middle Palaeolithic sites foreshaows developments leading to the industries of the tranisitional phase bordering the Upper Palaeolithic in the Levant. Lithic materials of Michmiche Gouffre were published by Dirk Leder in Tempora (https://www.usj.edu.lb/publications/catalogue/my-usjinfo.php?perpubid=2729) and in his PhD thesis (ISBN: 978-3-7749-3919-6).