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The Cyrenaican Prehistory Project 2013: the seventh season of excavations in the Haua Fteah cave

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 November 2014

Lucy Farr ,
Ross Lane ,
Fadl Abdulazeez ,
Paul Bennett ,
James Holman ,
Abdullah Marasi ,
Amy Prendergast ,
Mtaz Al-Zweyi  and
Graeme Barker
Lucy Farr
Affiliation:
McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, University of Cambridge, UK
Ross Lane
Affiliation:
Canterbury Archaeological Trust, UK
Fadl Abdulazeez
Affiliation:
Department of Antiquities, Shahat (Cyrene), Libya
Paul Bennett
Affiliation:
Canterbury Archaeological Trust, UK
James Holman
Affiliation:
Canterbury Archaeological Trust, UK
Abdullah Marasi
Affiliation:
Department of Antiquities, Shahat (Cyrene), Libya
Amy Prendergast
Affiliation:
McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, University of Cambridge, UK
Mtaz Al-Zweyi
Affiliation:
Department of Antiquities, Shahat (Cyrene), Libya
Graeme Barker
Affiliation:
McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, University of Cambridge, UK
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Abstract

The paper reports the preliminary results from the short season of fieldwork that the Cyrenaican Prehistory Project was able to undertake with a small Anglo-Libyan team in September 2013. The work concentrated on continuing the excavation of Trench M down the southern side of the Middle Trench and of Trench D on the southern side of the Deep Sounding below it, the eventual objective being to link these so as to provide a high quality dataset of sedimentary and cultural data from the top to the bottom of the Pleistocene occupation deposit (some 12 m). The ~1 m of sediments investigated in Trench M in the 2013 fieldwork includes carbonate crusts possibly formed in oscillating sub-humid to arid climatic pulses, perhaps likely during Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 4, around 60,000–70,000 years ago. One of these crusts formed the base on which a hearth-like structure had been built. In Trench D evidence for human occupation appears to decline moving up the profile, coinciding with sedimentary evidence of more frequent disruptive climatic events possibly associated with latter stages of MIS 5.

Type
Archaeological Reports
Information
Libyan Studies , Volume 45 , November 2014 , pp. 163 - 173
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for Libyan Studies 2014 

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