It was during these excavations that a woman, Yusra, recruited from a local village, was credited with the discovery of the Tabun 1 Neanderthal skull.

The melting glaciers which covered large parts of the globe caused the sea level to rise and the Mediterranean coastline to recede.

The cave dwellers of that time used handaxes of flint or limestone for killing animals (gazelle, hippopotamus, rhinoceros and wild cattle which roamed the Coastal Plain) and for digging out plant roots.

As tools improved slowly over time, the hand axes became smaller and better shaped, and scrapers made of thick flakes chipped off flint cores were probably used for scraping meat off bones and for processing animal skins.

[4] The upper levels in the Tabun cave consist mainly of clay and silt, indicating that a colder, more humid climate prevailed as glaciers formed once more; this change yielded a wider coastal strip, covered by dense forests and swamps.