Har Karkom HK86b 'Surrey-style' Flints

Photographer © James Harrod

These naturally and artificially flaked black flint/white cortex stone sculptures were found near the Har Karkom (Negev, Israel) Palaeolithic Sanctuary, HK86b, dated by Emmanuel Anati to the MP/UP transition, c. 47-38,000 BP. Unfortunately, they are not yet dated. I found most of them in an area of erosion just below the sanctuary where the cliff drops away and to the right of the flint mine. Some were found deposited by archaeologists at the edge of the sanctuary, as if in an act of reverence, which, ironically, I believe, typifies the Middle Palaeolithic spirituality. These white cortex/black flint sculptures are remarkably similar to flint sculptures collected by Ron Williams at Warlingham, Surrey, England from surface sites on the high ground of the South Downs overlooking the Thames River. This area has tools dating to the Early, Middle, and Upper Palaeolithic, as well as later Neolithic and Iron Age. For technological, stylistic, and thematic reasons, Mr. Williams and Jan Evert Musch have attributed the 'Surrey flints' to the Middle Palaeolithic. (See bibliography.) If that attribution is established, it may help date these Har Karkom flints.