Windows of Opportunity? An Examination of Potential Levantine-North African Connections during the Late Pleistocene
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
The Sinai peninsula, incorporating the Negev and Sinai deserts, provides the only physical land bridge between Africa and Eurasia. Yet, while ‘Out-of-Africa’ and (occasionally) ‘Back-to-Africa’ waves are demonstrated during the course of the Quaternary, evidence has been extremely sparse during the Late Pleistocene and earliest Holocene, ca. 50-8 ka. In the Levant this period corresponds to the initial emergence of Upper Palaeolithic foraging through to early settled farming and pastoral lifeways. Integration of a diverse array of recent detailed palaeoenvironmental, archaeological and other studies in both regions, i.e. the Levant and Northeastern Africa, provide an opportunity to re-examine the potential timing and nature of such interactions, and the role of the Nile valley.