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Prof. Yossi Zaidner

Prof. Yossi Zaidner is a paleolithic archaeologist, the head of the Laboratory for the Study of Human Cultural Evolution, and a professor at the Institute of Archaeology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His main research interests are human evolution, ecology, and behavior during the Lower, Middle, and early Upper Paleolithic periods.

The projects he is directing and collaborating with are rooted into the research of human culture, with an emphasis on lithic technology, population interactions, origins of modern humans, early hominin dispersals, and the peopling of the Levant and Central Asia.

He directs research projects at the Middle Paleolithic sites of Tinshemet Cave and Nesher Ramla and the Lower Paleolithic sites at Bizat Ruhama and Nahal Hesi. He co-directed the excavation project at the Early Middle Paleolithic site of Misliya Cave, Israel. In 2010 and 2011 Yossi Zaidner directed the field work at the Middle Paleolithic site of Nesher Ramla. Since 2016, he has been directing the fieldwork project at the Middle Paleolithic site of Tinshemet Cave, a unique human fossil site. His research interests recently inspired him to explore the Paleolithic of Central Asia, and since 2023, he has been directing excavations at the newly discovered rock shelter site of Soii Havzak in Tajikistan.

Yossi Zaidner is sharing his knowledge on prehistory and human evolution by actively teaching at the Institute of Archaeology, and he has supervised and co-supervised 20 postgraduate students. 

Among his most important active projects:

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The study of early Homo sapiens, Neanderthals and the Middle Pleistocene Homo evolution, interactions, social structure, and symbolic behavior. The project includes excavations at the Middle Paleolithic sites of Tinshemet Cave and Nesher Ramla karst sinkhole, both in Israel. The ongoing excavations at Tinshemet Cave have yielded the largest Pleistocene anthropological assemblage excavated in the Near East since the mid-twentieth century. It is also one of a handful of sites worldwide that still harbors in situ Middle Paleolithic human remains in the context of rich stone-tool, faunal and ochre assemblages. The research at the site is focused on the questions of social structure of the Middle Paleolithic hominins, their taxonomic identity, mobility, environmental adaptations, and symbolic behavior. The excavations at Nesher Ramla have yielded fossil remains of late Middle Pleistocene Homo.

 

Studying human evolution, migrations, and populations’ admixture in the Pleistocene in Central Asia (300-10 thousand years ago). Central Asia was a major hub of human evolution, migrations, and population admixture during the Pleistocene. It provided a refugia for paleolithic populations during periods of climatic oscillations and served as the major migration route and admixture/interaction zone for at least three human metapopulations - Denisovans, Neanderthals, and Homo sapiens. The project includes the excavations at the Soi Havzak rockshelter, Tajikistan and surveys of Paleolithic sites in the Zeravshan Valley, northern Tajikistan. The goal of this project is to establish a chrono-cultural framework, unravel the sources of technological diversity, and reconstruct human behavioral strategies in Central Asia during the Middle and the Upper Paleolithic.

 

Oldowan hominins at the threshold of Eurasia: fieldwork and research at Bizat Ruhama, a new Oldowan site complex in southern Israel. The fieldwork and research at the site are aimed at the reconstruction of the environment and cultural behavior of the early Oldowan stone tools makers as they left their Africa and dispersed into Eurasia about 1.5 million years ago.

Five majors scientific contributions:

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  1. Discovery of Homo sapiens fossil dated to 180 thousand years ago at Misliya Cave (published in Science; https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aap8369)

  2. Discovery of Nesher Ramla Homo – late Middle Pleistocene Homo (published in Science; https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abh3169)

  3. Publishing first archaeological evidence for the late Middle Pleistocene Homo & Homo sapiens interactions in the Middle Paleolithic (published in Science; https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abh3020)

  4. Studying archaic&modern human populations’ interactions in the Middle Paleolithic on the basis of the results of excavations at Tinshemet Cave (published in Nature Human Behavior; https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-025-02110-y)

  5. Identification and study of the first Oldowan site in the Levant at Bizat Ruhama, Israel (published as a book; https://www.barpublishing.com/lithic-production-strategies-at-the-early-pleistocene-site-of-bizat-ruhama-israel.html)

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