Summary
The Ksar Akil rockshelter, is located 10 km northeast of Beirut adjacent to the coastal plain in the foothills of the Lebanon Mountain range. During the 1930s and 1940s, 37 thick geological levels were identified, containing a succession of Epipalaeolithic, Upper Palaeolithic, and Middle Palaeolithic horizons from the rockshelter’s surface and extending ~23 ms down to bedrock. The Upper Palaeolithic levels have been extensively studied by numerous scholars and represent Atlitian, Levantine Aurignacian (sensu stricto), Northern Ahmarian, and Initial Upper Palaeolithic occupations. An anatomically modern child (Egbert, Ksar Akil 1), discovered in the Northern Ahmarian levels, is 40,850–39,200 or 41,050–38,300 cal BP (1σ or 2σ, respectively). Another human specimen recovered in the Initial Upper Palaeolithic levels, Ethelruda (Ksar Akil 2), is 42,400–41,750 or 42,850–41,550 cal BP (1σ or 2σ, respectively).