“the lowest sublevel...is sealed by the pieces of rock from the walls and roof of the shelter...”
Are you saying that they dug all the way to the rock floor, or that they were stopped by a layer of rocks from the walls and roof? If they did not dig all the way to the bottom, perhaps the layer of rocks was caused by a major catastrophe/earthquake, and there might be some very interesting stuff underneath all those rocks that fell from walls and roof.
Are you saying that they dug all the way to the rock floor, or that they were stopped by a layer of rocks from the walls and roof? If they did not dig all the way to the bottom, perhaps the layer of rocks was caused by a major catastrophe/earthquake, and there might be some very interesting stuff underneath all those rocks that fell from walls and roof.
My take on this is that roof fall occurred at some time in the past, isolating layers below from layers above. A good rock layer would reduce intermixing by rodents and subsequent habitation. This is what they meant by "lowest sublevel" I would think.
Those kinds of isolated layers or features are particularly valuable. If you have a well-defined layer, and you can date either that layer or what isolates it from above, you have much better temporal control.
This find sounds pretty interesting. But I wish the article specified which of the ancient mtDNA types were found!
They were glad for that collapse layer, because it capped the older strata. The dig was meticulous, and funded year after year, pretty much a dream situation for the excavators. Adovasio was so tired of having the same tired worn-out fake counterarguments trotted out, that (by his own account) he exclaimed “horse —” at what was supposed to have been one of those peer-to-peer roundtables on the finds.