The Middle to Upper Palaeolithic Transition in the Levant and New Thermoluminescence Dates for a Late Mousterian Assemblage from Jerf-al Ajla Cave (Syria)

Thermoluminescence dating of eight heated flint artefacts from the Late Mousterian (Moustérien tardif) layer С at Jerf al- Ajla, cave in the Syrian steppe desert near Palmyra gave an average age of 33.3 ±2.3 ka. The assemblage shows strong similarities to the Middle to Upper Palaeolithic stratigraphically intermediate layers from the nearby site of Umm el Tlel, which are dated by the same method on the same kind of material to a statistically …