The cave exists in Turonian limestone in the western mountain ridge of Israel between the Samaria Hills and the Israeli coastal plain. It is 90m above sea level. Deposits at the site are deep, and are divided into two layers: the upper is about thick, and the lower. The upper forms a step on the lower one. The deposits contain stone tools and animal remains from the Acheulo-Yabrudian complex. This a period that follows after the Acheulian but before the Mousterian. No traces of Mousterian occupation have been found. The cave was found in October 2000 when road construction destroyed its ceiling. This led to two rescue excavations in 2001. At present the site is protected, covered and fenced and subject to on-going excavations.
Dating
Qesem Cave was occupied from about 420-220 ka, although there is some uncertainty regarding the end date. All archaeological finds at Qesem Cave have been assigned to the Acheulo-Yabrudian Cultural Complex of the late Lower Paleolithic. In 2003, 230Th/234U dating on speleothems established the beginning of the occupation as "well before about 382,000 years ago." Further research in 2010, 2013, and 2016, involved thermoluminescence dating on burnt flints and ESR/U-series on speleothems and herbivorous teeth. As a result, the date for the start of the occupation has been revised to 420 ka. The date for the end of the occupation has been problematic, with an early estimate of "before 152,000," subsequently revised to "between 220 and 194 ka" but rounded to "ca. 200 ka"; more recently "closer to 220 ka than to 194 ka" and thus rounded to "220 ka."
Artifacts
Qesem Cave stone tools are made of flint. They are mainly blades, end scrapers, burins, and naturally backed knives. There are also flakes and hammerstones. Some of the horizons contain many blades and related blade-tools but they are absent in others. However thick side-scrapers are found throughout them. Acheulian type hand-axes are found at the top and at the bottom of the archeological sequence. All stages of stone tool manufacture have been found. Many of the cores have sufficient of the surface cortex to allow reconstruction of the original stone's shape. Using the concentration of cosmic ray created Beryllium-10 it has been argued that the flint used at Qesem Cave was surface-collected or only dug from shallow quarries. This is in contrast to flint of the same period from Tabun Cave nearby that originated two or more metres below the surface, probably after being mined. A 2020 study led by researcher Ella Assaf from Tel Aviv University concluded that shaped stone balls discovered at Qesem cave were used to break the bones of large animals in order to extract the nutritious marrow inside.
Fire
The Qesem Cave contains one of the earliest examples of regular use of fire in the Middle Pleistocene. Large quantities of burnt bone, defined by a combination of microscopic and macroscopic criteria, and moderately heated soil lumps suggest butchering and prey-defleshing occurred near fireplaces. 10-36% of identified bone specimens show signs of burning and on unidentified bone ones it could be up to 84%. Such heat reached 500 degrees C. A 300,000-year-old hearth was unearthed in a central part of the cave. Layers of ash was discovered in the pit, and burnt animal bones and flint tools used for carving meat were found near the hearth, suggesting it was used repeatedly and was a focal pointfor the people living there.
Hunted prey
Bones from 4,740 prey animals have been identified. These are mostly large mammals such as fallow deer, aurochs, horse, wild pig, wild goat, roe deer, wild ass and red deer. Tortoise and a rare rhinoceros remains have also been found but no gazelle bones. These animal bones show marks of butchery, marrow extraction and burning from fire. Analysis of the orientation and anatomical placements of the cut marks suggest meat and connective tissue were cut off in a planned manner from the bone. Deer remains are limited to limb bones and head parts without remains of vertebrae, ribs, pelvis, or feet suggesting that butchery was selective in regard to the body parts that had been carried to the cave following initial butchery of the animal carcasses elsewhere. Moreover, the presence of fetal bones and the absence of deer antlers implies that much of the hunting took place in late winter through early summer. At that time the need for additional fat in the diet would have made those animals particularly important prey. The excavators described this as "prime-age-focused harvesting, a uniquely human predator–prey relationship".
