R Shimelmitz
Biographic Data
| ID | 44975 |
|---|---|
| NAME | R Shimelmitz |
| GIVEN NAMES | R |
| FAMILY NAME | Shimelmitz |
| SIGNATURE | SHIMELMITZ R |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Haifa |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-0395-9036 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 38 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 544 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 38 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2000 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 12 |
Reflections on the Circulation of Extraordinary Items in Early Chalcolithic Southwest Asia: Sourcing the Obsidian Mirror and Giant Blade Core of Kabri (Israel)
The 6th-millennium b.c. obsidian mirror and giant blade core from Kabri, northern Israel, have long been considered epitomes of Southwest Asian Early Chalcolithic technical and artistic virtuosity. Nevertheless, even almost 70 years after their discovery, they are yet to be integrated into the growing body of research on obsidian circulation from Anatolian sources to prehistoric communities of the southern Levant. This paper presents for the firs…
Refining collection-unit survey methodology: The Maharal Valley project case study
Archaeological field surveys frequently rely on collection unit methodologies to map surface artifact distributions across landscapes. While effective in rapidly covering large areas, these methods face persistent limitations that arise from sampling biases and post-depositional histories. The Maharal Valley Project, Israel, tackles these challenges through an innovative integrative framework that strengthens the analytical capabilities of collec…
Birds from the oven: The Middle Palaeolithic avifauna of Tabun Cave, Mount Carmel, Israel
The long Middle Palaeolithic sequence of Tabun Cave covers a vital time of human dispersal across the Levant, both from Africa and from Europe. The sequence contains two of the human morphotypes found in the Levant during this period, most usually assigned to Neanderthals and anatomically modern humans, providing a unique opportunity to investigate whether there are behavioural differences between the two human groups. We approach this through th…
Large Predator Hunting and Its Interpretation: Leopards, Bears and Lions in the Archaeological Record of the Southern Levant
In this paper, we discuss the occurrence of lions, bears and leopards in south Levantine archaeological assemblages between the last glacial maximum (c.25,000 years ago) and the Iron Age (c.2500 years ago). We argue that the occurrence of these large carnivores constitutes a significant long-term cultural feature that begins with the first settled hunter-gatherer communities of the Natufian culture. Importantly, we show that carnivoran species re…
How far does culture go
Focusing on the late prehistoric southern Levant, we recently suggested that the diffused low-frequency distribution of large predator bones (lion, leopard and bear) coalesces into a coherent temporal pattern when observed at a sufficiently long timescale. While in the previous research we sought to determine what sort of sociocultural mechanism might explain this pattern, effectively drawing it into the orbit of the familiar, in this brief provo…
A micro-geoarchaeological view on stratigraphy and site formation processes in the Middle, Upper and Epi-Paleolithic layers of Sefunim Cave, Mt. Carmel, Israel
This paper presents a micro-geoarchaeological study carried out on the sedimentary sequence exposed at the entrance of Sefunim Cave, Israel, a sequence that spans from the Middle Paleolithic to the early Epipaleolithic periods. Using FTIR and micromorphological techniques, we investigated the stratigraphic sequence to reconstruct patterns of site use and archaeological formation processes. We identified formation processes that are common among P…
From Hafting to Retooling: Miniaturization as Tolerance Control in Paleolithic and Neolithic Blade Production
A Middle Pleistocene abrading tool from Tabun Cave, Israel: A search for the roots of abrading technology in human evolution
The end of the Acheulo-Yabrudian and the Lower Paleolithic in the Levant: A view from the "transitional" Unit X of Tabun Cave, Israel
The evolution of raw material procurement strategies: A view from the deep sequence of Tabun Cave, Israel
Diachronic trends in occupation intensity of the Epipaleolithic site of Neve David (Mount Carmel, Israel): A lithic perspective
Nahal Shelef: A Holocene Quarry and Workshop Site in The Menashe Hills
Ron Shimelmitz, רון שימלמיץ, Cheng Liu, צ'נג ליו, Mason Seymore, מייסון סימור, Eli Crater Gershtein, אלי קרטר גרשטיין, Kathryn Crater Gershtein, קתרין קרטר גרשטיין, Amir Katina, אמיר קטינא, Nurit Shtober-Zisu, נורית שטובר-זיסו, Dani Nadel, דני נדל, Nahal Shelef - נחל שלף, Mitekufat Haeven: Journal of the Israel Prehistoric Society / מתקופת האבן, כרך מ"ט (2019), pp. 137-151
Pits and their Contents: The Wadi Rabah Site of Qidron in The Shephela, Israel
Danny Rosenberg, Edwin C. M. van den Brink, Ron Shimelmitz, Assaf Nativ, Henk K. Mienis, Orit Shamir, Rivka Chasan, Tamar Shooval, דני רוזנברג, אדוין ון דן ברינק, רון שימלמיץ, אסף נתיב, הנק מיניס, אורית שמיר, רבקה חזן, תמר שובל, בורות ותוכנם: קדרון, אתר מתרבות ואדי רבה בשפלה, ישראל / Pits and their Contents: The Wadi Rabah Site of Qidron in the Shephela, Israel, Mitekufat Haeven: Journal of the Israel Prehistoric Society / מתקופת האבן, כרך מ"ז (2…
The Circles Building (Granary) at Tel Bet Yerah (Khirbet el-Kerak): A New Synthesis (Excavations of 1945–1946, 2003–2015)
New excavations conducted in the Circles Building (Granary) at Tel Bet Yerah, first excavated in 1946, form the basis for a revised, detailed description of the construction and use of this unique structure. Stratigraphic soundings have established that the structure consisted of three platforms with seven circles sunk into them, enclosing a paved courtyard that was open toward the east. The structure was constructed in a single operation, at the…
The Upper Paleolithic and Epipaleolithic of Sefunim Cave, Israel
The toolkit in the core: There is more to Levallois production than predetermination
Perforated Stars: Networks of Prestige Item Exchange and the Role of Perforated Flint Objects in the Late Chalcolithic of the Southern Levant
Within the Late Chalcolithic of the Levant, the issues of specialization, regionality, and new dimensions of social complexity are long debated. In this article, we focus on the appearance of perforated flint objects that reflect specific patterns of production and distribution, clustering in northern Israel and southern Syria. We discuss this phenomenon in the contexts of Chalcolithic craft production and intraregional exchange networks. We demo…
The organization of basanite bifacial production at Giv’at Kipod Quarry, Israel: Towards an ‘Alyawara Day’ model of extraction
Hunter gatherers as well as farmers used a variety of lithic raw materials to shape their world, in which some were perceived as having symbolic or mythical content. While the anthropological literature demonstrates that the extraction of raw materials of special significance was often performed differently from that of other more 'ordinary' raw materials, identifying this in the archaeological record is difficult. In this paper we wish to shed n…
Handaxe manufacture and re-sharpening throughout the Lower Paleolithic sequence of Tabun Cave
The Lower to Middle Paleolithic transition and the diversification of Levallois technology in the Southern Levant: Evidence from Tabun Cave, Israel
Regional variability in late Lower Paleolithic Amudian blade technology: Analyzing new data from Qesem, Tabun and Yabrud I
The Geochemistry of Basalt Handaxes from the Lower Palaeolithic Site of M a‛ayan B aruch, I srael—A Perspective on Raw Material Selection
The Upper Acheulian site of M a‛ayan B aruch, northern I srael, is primarily known for its exceptionally large assemblage of thousands of flint handaxes. Within this assemblage, a minute collection of basalt handaxes was retrieved as well, representing particular technological choice within the Upper Acheulian. Using geochemistry, we were able to determine that these basalt handaxes were not made from local basalt, but from different sources. Thu…
Flint Knapping in the Late Bronze Age: A Dying Technology? A Perspective from the Lower City of Hazor
Expedient production constitutes a significant aspect of the lithic assemblages of the Bronze and Iron Ages, particularly of those postdating the Early Bronze Age. The study of this simple flint technology is usually neglected, framed under ‘opportunistic production’. The excavations at the Late Bronze Age Lower City of Hazor Area S, where flint items were collected systematically and sediments sieved, enabled a more detailed study of this relati…
The Flint Assemblage
Flint Knapping and the Early Bronze Age I Temple of Megiddo, Israel: Some Aspects of the Organization of Late Prehistoric Cult
The Early Bronze (EB) Ib Temple of Megiddo Level J-4, with its complex architecture, marks an important threshold in the development of complex societies that characterized the Early Bronze Age of the Levant. The temple was abandoned at the end of the EB Ib, leaving behind few traces of the activities performed within—the primary remains being deposits of animal bone sacrificial waste found in different localities within the structure and its vic…
Fire at will: The emergence of habitual fire use 350,000 years ago
Systematic blade production at late Lower Paleolithic (400-200 kyr) Qesem Cave, Israel
Use-wear analysis of an Amudian laminar assemblage from the Acheuleo-Yabrudian of Qesem Cave, Israel
The recycling of flint throughout the Lower and Middle Paleolithic sequence of Tabun Cave, Israel
The toolkit in the core: There is more to Levallois production than predetermination
The Lower to Middle Paleolithic transition and the diversification of Levallois technology in the Southern Levant: Evidence from Tabun Cave, Israel
Handaxe manufacture and re-sharpening throughout the Lower Paleolithic sequence of Tabun Cave
The Upper Paleolithic and Epipaleolithic of Sefunim Cave, Israel
Regional variability in late Lower Paleolithic Amudian blade technology: Analyzing new data from Qesem, Tabun and Yabrud I
The geometric kebaran microlithic assemblage of Ain Miri, Northern Israel
This article discusses an important assemblage of microliths from the Geometric Kebaran site of Ain Miri in the Upper Galilee, Israel. Geometric microliths dominate the assemblage and these comprise trapezes and rectangles, with some parallelograms and a small number of lunates. Strict definitions were used to describe the complete geometric microliths (which avoided the use of the general term trapeze/rectangle) and neutral descriptive terms wer…
New evidence for the Anatolian origins of ‘Khirbet Kerak Ware people’ at Tel Bet Yerah (Israel), ca 2800 BC
A Tel Bet Yerah, la fouille intensive de contextes associés à de grandes quantités de céramique Khirbet-Kerak (KKW), ainsi que de contextes associés à la poterie de tradition locale, qu’ils soient antérieurs aux contextes KKW ou contemporains, nous a permis d’élargir la définition du complexe culturel KKW. L’usage du torchis, le mobilier en terre cuite polie, une technologie lithique particulière, les supports de foyers en argile, des objets symb…
The Geochemistry of Basalt Handaxes from the Lower Palaeolithic Site of M a‛ayan B aruch, I srael—A Perspective on Raw Material Selection
The Upper Acheulian site of M a‛ayan B aruch, northern I srael, is primarily known for its exceptionally large assemblage of thousands of flint handaxes. Within this assemblage, a minute collection of basalt handaxes was retrieved as well, representing particular technological choice within the Upper Acheulian. Using geochemistry, we were able to determine that these basalt handaxes were not made from local basalt, but from different sources. Thu…
Diachronic trends in occupation intensity of the Epipaleolithic site of Neve David (Mount Carmel, Israel): A lithic perspective
From Hafting to Retooling: Miniaturization as Tolerance Control in Paleolithic and Neolithic Blade Production
The evolution of raw material procurement strategies: A view from the deep sequence of Tabun Cave, Israel
The organization of basanite bifacial production at Giv’at Kipod Quarry, Israel: Towards an ‘Alyawara Day’ model of extraction
Hunter gatherers as well as farmers used a variety of lithic raw materials to shape their world, in which some were perceived as having symbolic or mythical content. While the anthropological literature demonstrates that the extraction of raw materials of special significance was often performed differently from that of other more 'ordinary' raw materials, identifying this in the archaeological record is difficult. In this paper we wish to shed n…
Basalt bifacial tool production in the southern Levant: A glance at the quarry and workshop site of Giv'at Kipod, Israel
The authors describe the discovery of a Late Neolithic/Chalcolithic basalt axe factory in the Manasseh Hills in Israel and suggest it had a primary role in the region for the production of these functional and symbolic tools. The form of discarded roughouts and flakes is used to deduce the principal eventual product and its sequence of manufacture
Perforated Stars: Networks of Prestige Item Exchange and the Role of Perforated Flint Objects in the Late Chalcolithic of the Southern Levant
Within the Late Chalcolithic of the Levant, the issues of specialization, regionality, and new dimensions of social complexity are long debated. In this article, we focus on the appearance of perforated flint objects that reflect specific patterns of production and distribution, clustering in northern Israel and southern Syria. We discuss this phenomenon in the contexts of Chalcolithic craft production and intraregional exchange networks. We demo…
The end of the Acheulo-Yabrudian and the Lower Paleolithic in the Levant: A view from the "transitional" Unit X of Tabun Cave, Israel
Flint Knapping and the Early Bronze Age I Temple of Megiddo, Israel: Some Aspects of the Organization of Late Prehistoric Cult
The Early Bronze (EB) Ib Temple of Megiddo Level J-4, with its complex architecture, marks an important threshold in the development of complex societies that characterized the Early Bronze Age of the Levant. The temple was abandoned at the end of the EB Ib, leaving behind few traces of the activities performed within—the primary remains being deposits of animal bone sacrificial waste found in different localities within the structure and its vic…
A Middle Pleistocene abrading tool from Tabun Cave, Israel: A search for the roots of abrading technology in human evolution
Dull-edged Weapons and Low-level Fighting in the Late Prehistoric Southern Levant
While duels and other types of fighting with a relatively low level of lethal risk are well known from the ethnographic record, these have been less studied from an archaeological perspective. These fights are different from ‘war’ in the lack of killing intent and they are commonly referred to as ‘ritual fighting’, thus implying the social significance of the act and not just the outcome. Our study concentrates on the Late Pottery Neolithic and C…
Birds from the oven: The Middle Palaeolithic avifauna of Tabun Cave, Mount Carmel, Israel
The long Middle Palaeolithic sequence of Tabun Cave covers a vital time of human dispersal across the Levant, both from Africa and from Europe. The sequence contains two of the human morphotypes found in the Levant during this period, most usually assigned to Neanderthals and anatomically modern humans, providing a unique opportunity to investigate whether there are behavioural differences between the two human groups. We approach this through th…
A micro-geoarchaeological view on stratigraphy and site formation processes in the Middle, Upper and Epi-Paleolithic layers of Sefunim Cave, Mt. Carmel, Israel
This paper presents a micro-geoarchaeological study carried out on the sedimentary sequence exposed at the entrance of Sefunim Cave, Israel, a sequence that spans from the Middle Paleolithic to the early Epipaleolithic periods. Using FTIR and micromorphological techniques, we investigated the stratigraphic sequence to reconstruct patterns of site use and archaeological formation processes. We identified formation processes that are common among P…
Large Predator Hunting and Its Interpretation: Leopards, Bears and Lions in the Archaeological Record of the Southern Levant
In this paper, we discuss the occurrence of lions, bears and leopards in south Levantine archaeological assemblages between the last glacial maximum (c.25,000 years ago) and the Iron Age (c.2500 years ago). We argue that the occurrence of these large carnivores constitutes a significant long-term cultural feature that begins with the first settled hunter-gatherer communities of the Natufian culture. Importantly, we show that carnivoran species re…
A Canaanean Blade Workshop at Haruvim, Israel
Har Haruvim is an Early Bronze Age settlement located near Kibbutz Hazorea in central Israel (Fig. 1). The site was surveyed in the 1950's and 60's (Meyerhof 1960), and is well known for its many Canaanean cores. Ceramic sherds date the site to the early Bronze Age II-III. This article presents the flint assemblage collected in 1997 during a survey conducted by the authors on behalf of the Institute of Archaeology, Tel Aviv University. The survey…
A Canaanean Blade Workshop at Haruvim, Israel
A Glance at the Early Trans-Caucasian Culture Through Its Nomadic Component
It has long been claimed that the Early Trans-Caucasian culture had a pastoral-nomadic component. I will argue that this component was an integral part of the culture and will endeavour to evaluate the implications of the existence of such a component. The ability of groups practicing pastoral-nomadism to integrate into 'local' communities will be presented as the main factor affecting their regional dispersion and the disintegration of this cult…
A Glance at the Early Trans-Caucasian Culture Through Its Nomadic Component
It has long been claimed that the Early Trans-Caucasian culture had a pastoral-nomadic component. I will argue that this component was an integral part of the culture and will endeavour to evaluate the implications of the existence of such a component. The ability of groups practicing pastoral-nomadism to integrate into 'local' communities will be presented as the main factor affecting their regional dispersion and the disintegration of this cult…
The geometric kebaran microlithic assemblage of Ain Miri, Northern Israel
This article discusses an important assemblage of microliths from the Geometric Kebaran site of Ain Miri in the Upper Galilee, Israel. Geometric microliths dominate the assemblage and these comprise trapezes and rectangles, with some parallelograms and a small number of lunates. Strict definitions were used to describe the complete geometric microliths (which avoided the use of the general term trapeze/rectangle) and neutral descriptive terms wer…
Use-wear analysis of an Amudian laminar assemblage from the Acheuleo-Yabrudian of Qesem Cave, Israel
A Chalcolithic Workshop for the Production of Blades and Bi-facial Tools at Khirbet Yoah, the Manasseh Hills
RON SHIMELMITZ, SHLOMO MENDEL, רון שימלמיץ, שלמה מנדל, רון שמלמיץ, שלמה מנדל, סדנה כלקוליתית לייצור של להבים וכלים דו-פניים בחורבת יואה (Yoah), גבעות מנשה / A Chalcolithic Workshop for the Production of Blades and Bi-facial Tools at Khirbet Yoah, the Manasseh Hills, Mitekufat Haeven: Journal of the Israel Prehistoric Society / מתקופת האבן, כרך ל"ח (תשס"ט, 2008), pp. 229-256
Basalt bifacial tool production in the southern Levant: A glance at the quarry and workshop site of Giv'at Kipod, Israel
The authors describe the discovery of a Late Neolithic/Chalcolithic basalt axe factory in the Manasseh Hills in Israel and suggest it had a primary role in the region for the production of these functional and symbolic tools. The form of discarded roughouts and flakes is used to deduce the principal eventual product and its sequence of manufacture
Systematic blade production at late Lower Paleolithic (400-200 kyr) Qesem Cave, Israel
Dull-edged Weapons and Low-level Fighting in the Late Prehistoric Southern Levant
While duels and other types of fighting with a relatively low level of lethal risk are well known from the ethnographic record, these have been less studied from an archaeological perspective. These fights are different from ‘war’ in the lack of killing intent and they are commonly referred to as ‘ritual fighting’, thus implying the social significance of the act and not just the outcome. Our study concentrates on the Late Pottery Neolithic and C…
Flint Knapping in the Late Bronze Age: A Dying Technology? A Perspective from the Lower City of Hazor
Expedient production constitutes a significant aspect of the lithic assemblages of the Bronze and Iron Ages, particularly of those postdating the Early Bronze Age. The study of this simple flint technology is usually neglected, framed under ‘opportunistic production’. The excavations at the Late Bronze Age Lower City of Hazor Area S, where flint items were collected systematically and sediments sieved, enabled a more detailed study of this relati…
The Flint Assemblage
Flint Knapping and the Early Bronze Age I Temple of Megiddo, Israel: Some Aspects of the Organization of Late Prehistoric Cult
The Early Bronze (EB) Ib Temple of Megiddo Level J-4, with its complex architecture, marks an important threshold in the development of complex societies that characterized the Early Bronze Age of the Levant. The temple was abandoned at the end of the EB Ib, leaving behind few traces of the activities performed within—the primary remains being deposits of animal bone sacrificial waste found in different localities within the structure and its vic…
The recycling of flint throughout the Lower and Middle Paleolithic sequence of Tabun Cave, Israel
New evidence for the Anatolian origins of ‘Khirbet Kerak Ware people’ at Tel Bet Yerah (Israel), ca 2800 BC
A Tel Bet Yerah, la fouille intensive de contextes associés à de grandes quantités de céramique Khirbet-Kerak (KKW), ainsi que de contextes associés à la poterie de tradition locale, qu’ils soient antérieurs aux contextes KKW ou contemporains, nous a permis d’élargir la définition du complexe culturel KKW. L’usage du torchis, le mobilier en terre cuite polie, une technologie lithique particulière, les supports de foyers en argile, des objets symb…
Fire at will: The emergence of habitual fire use 350,000 years ago
Regional variability in late Lower Paleolithic Amudian blade technology: Analyzing new data from Qesem, Tabun and Yabrud I
The Geochemistry of Basalt Handaxes from the Lower Palaeolithic Site of M a‛ayan B aruch, I srael—A Perspective on Raw Material Selection
The Upper Acheulian site of M a‛ayan B aruch, northern I srael, is primarily known for its exceptionally large assemblage of thousands of flint handaxes. Within this assemblage, a minute collection of basalt handaxes was retrieved as well, representing particular technological choice within the Upper Acheulian. Using geochemistry, we were able to determine that these basalt handaxes were not made from local basalt, but from different sources. Thu…
The organization of basanite bifacial production at Giv’at Kipod Quarry, Israel: Towards an ‘Alyawara Day’ model of extraction
Hunter gatherers as well as farmers used a variety of lithic raw materials to shape their world, in which some were perceived as having symbolic or mythical content. While the anthropological literature demonstrates that the extraction of raw materials of special significance was often performed differently from that of other more 'ordinary' raw materials, identifying this in the archaeological record is difficult. In this paper we wish to shed n…
Handaxe manufacture and re-sharpening throughout the Lower Paleolithic sequence of Tabun Cave
The Lower to Middle Paleolithic transition and the diversification of Levallois technology in the Southern Levant: Evidence from Tabun Cave, Israel
Pits and their Contents: The Wadi Rabah Site of Qidron in The Shephela, Israel
Danny Rosenberg, Edwin C. M. van den Brink, Ron Shimelmitz, Assaf Nativ, Henk K. Mienis, Orit Shamir, Rivka Chasan, Tamar Shooval, דני רוזנברג, אדוין ון דן ברינק, רון שימלמיץ, אסף נתיב, הנק מיניס, אורית שמיר, רבקה חזן, תמר שובל, בורות ותוכנם: קדרון, אתר מתרבות ואדי רבה בשפלה, ישראל / Pits and their Contents: The Wadi Rabah Site of Qidron in the Shephela, Israel, Mitekufat Haeven: Journal of the Israel Prehistoric Society / מתקופת האבן, כרך מ"ז (2…
The Circles Building (Granary) at Tel Bet Yerah (Khirbet el-Kerak): A New Synthesis (Excavations of 1945–1946, 2003–2015)
New excavations conducted in the Circles Building (Granary) at Tel Bet Yerah, first excavated in 1946, form the basis for a revised, detailed description of the construction and use of this unique structure. Stratigraphic soundings have established that the structure consisted of three platforms with seven circles sunk into them, enclosing a paved courtyard that was open toward the east. The structure was constructed in a single operation, at the…
The Upper Paleolithic and Epipaleolithic of Sefunim Cave, Israel
The toolkit in the core: There is more to Levallois production than predetermination
Archaeology (33 works) · Geography (33 works) · Archaeology and ancient environmental studies (30 works) · Pleistocene-Era Hominins and Archaeology (23 works) · Geology (19 works) · Forensic Anthropology and Bioarchaeology Studies (16 works) · Bronze Age (14 works) · History (14 works) · Paleontology (14 works) · Cave (12 works)