The Carmel Caves in northern Israel were recently added to the list of World Heritage Sites in the country by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

According to UNESCO, the Carmel Caves provide a definitive chronological framework at a key period of human development.

Situated on the western slopes of the Mount Carmel range, south of Haifa, the site includes four caves. Ninety years of archaeological research have revealed a cultural sequence of unparalleled duration, providing an archive of early human life in south-west Asia.

The area contains cultural deposits representing at least 500,000 years of human evolution demonstrating the unique existence of both Neanderthals and Early Anatomically Modern Humans within the same Middle Palaeolithic cultural framework, the Mousterian.

Evidence from numerous Natufian burials and early stone architecture represents the transition from a hunter-gathering lifestyle to agriculture and animal husbandry.