[3] He began to specialise in archaeology of the Middle East in 1958 when Maurice Dunand invited him to assist with excavations and studies of the stone tool industries at Byblos in Lebanon.
This occurred at El Kowm, where the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs collaborated with Syrian authorities to examine an expansive 30-kilometer (19 mi) region, devoid of the pressures of immediate time constraints seen at Mureybet.
[4] In 1978, Cauvin was asked by the Turkish government to launch a new rescue campaign on the Euphrates at Cafer Hoyuk that ended in 1986 due to flooding of the area.
His work on these various important sites and the materials collected have highlighted the steps in humanity's development through the late Natufian to the end of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (PPNB).
[6] Jacques Cauvin wrote with an impressive breadth and variety in a multitude of books, articles in scientific journals, collaborations with scientists, and other agencies.
He discussed the involvement of humans in domestication of cereals during the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA) stage and supported ideas of diffusionism from the northern Levant into Anatolia at the end of the PPNB.