HAUA FTEAH
Lo CATION
Haua Fteah Cave, east of Benghazi on the Gebel
Akhdar plateau, Cyrenaica, northern Libya.
DISCOVERY
C. B. M. McBurney and colleagues, 1952 and 1955.MATERIAL
Four preserved mandibular fragments: AF.O.Tl
(adult, L side) and AF.O.T2 (also L side, of subadult),
both missing lateral part of condyle (carnivore dam-
age?); HFT 52/59, anterior mandibular fragment of
adult, and HFT 52/9, fragment of adult R corpus.
Also HFT5 5 5/6, parietal fragments.DATING AND STRATIGRAPHIC CONTEXT
Partly subaerial deposit in eroded remnants of a large
solution cavity in a limestone plateau. Occupation
runs from Levalloiso-Mousterian right through the
present (McBurney et al., 1953). The main jaw frag-
ment was found quite low in the section, among a
scattering of mammal bones bordering a hearth, in a
level dated at about 47 Ka (Stringer and Brooks, in
Delson et al., 2000).ARCHAEOLOGICAL CONTEXT
Levalloiso-Mousterian (McBurney et al., 1953;
McBurney, 1967), adjacent to a hearth.PREVIOUS DESCRIPTIONS AND ANALYSES
First described by Trevor and Wells (in McBurney
et al., 1953), who considered the closest comparison
to be with the Mount Carmel specimens (then con-
sidered to represent a single variable population). In
the monographic treatment of the site (1967), To-
bias pointed both to certain limited “Nean-
derthaloid” resemblances, which “continue forward
from the Neandertaloids of Western Asia to the
early Homo sapiens in this area” (p. 347), and to dif-
ferences from the Mount Carmel population. Thus,
“In those respects in which they differ from the
South-west Asian fossils, the Haua Fteah remains
resemble some of the Middle and Upper Pleistocene
hominids of Africa” (Tobias, 1967: 348). It is not
clear what differentiates these specimens from
modern Homo sapiens.MORPHOLOGY
AF.O.Tl: posterior part of L corpus, with ramus and
M2 and 3. Corpus damaged inferiorly and laterally;
much still covered by matrix, especially laterally.
AF.O.T2: Small, gracile subadult L ramus with crypt
for Ml. HFT 52/59 (labeled as HFT/52/9): part of
anterior region of mandible lacking teeth; region from
RC to LPs preserved; lacks inferior portion just to R
of midline. HFT 529: part of weathered R mandibu-
lar corpus, containing alveoli for C and P1, plus P2,
broken M1 and 2. Also isolated lower R molar that
could be associated; bears same number. As all appear
to represent the same morph, their preserved features93