Ancient humans precisely navigated northern Israel to find right stones for tools, study suggests

ByMIRIAM SELA-EITAMJULY 19, 2026 07:29Updated: JULY 19, 2026 07:32Early hominins living in the ancient Galilee were able to navigate their landscape with remarkable precision to locate specific rock sources for their tools, according to a new study.Gesher Benot Ya'akov (GBY), one of Israel's most important prehistoric sites, dates back to about 780,000 years ago. It preserves multiple Acheulian hominin settlements along the shores of paleo-Lake Hula in northern Israel.Excavations at the site, directed by study co-author Professor Naama Goren-Inbar from the Hebrew University, have previously unearthed stone tools made of flint, limestone, and basalt. Evidence of fire use, plant exploitation, animal processing, and fish consumption has also been discovered at the site.Basalt seemingly held special importance at GBY, particularly for the production of large cutting tools such as handaxes and cleavers. Earlier research has shown that making such tools was no simple task: hominins had to select large basalt slabs, work them down into massive cores, strike off large flakes, and then carefully shape those flakes into finished handaxes.Such a process required planning, technical skill, and detailed knowledge of basalt's properties.Sampling basalt flows in the vicinity of Gesher Benot Ya‘akov, July 17, 2026. (credit: N. Goren-Inbar/Hebrew University of Jerusalem)Where did materials for their tools come from?What the new study set out to determine was exactly where that basalt came from.By comparing the chemical signatures of basalt tools with samples collected from nearby basalt flows, including material pulled from the Eshel Ya'akov borehole, which reaches basalt layers now buried underground, researchers were able to match many artifacts to sources within about a kilometer of the site.Interestingly, some of the tools were chemically matched to basalt sources that no longer exist on the surface. These sources may have been buried over time or eroded away by millennia of tectonic activity, the study explained.Different basalt used for different toolsAdditionally, the chemical analysis revealed that the tools varied in type. Some cleavers seem to have been made from basalt sources different from those used to produce most handaxes and giant cores.According to the study, early hominins deliberately sought out basalt with specific qualities suited to particular tools.Further, while the giant cores were consistently linked to basalt found close by or now hidden beneath the site, some of the cleavers discovered appear to have been made from basalt that doesn’t match any of the local, sampled sources.Even more notable, the pattern of selective sourcing appears repeatedly across multiple archaeological layers at GBY, spanning tens of thousands of years, suggesting it wasn't a one-off choice but a tradition passed down through generations.Taken together, the findings paint a picture of early hominins as far more than opportunistic scavengers of whatever stone lay around.Ancient hominins appear to have carried detailed mental maps of their surroundings, understood how the landscape around them was changing, and applied that knowledge purposefully, choosing "the right rock for the right tool at the right time.”The complete findings were published in the journal Scientific Reports in early June, titled “Geochemical basalt investigation reveals procurement strategy at the Acheulian site of Gesher Benot Ya‘aqov, Dead Sea Transform, Israel.”The research was led by Dr. Tzahi Golan and Dr. Yoav Ben Dor of the Geological Survey of Israel, together with Prof. Naama Goren-Inbar of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, who has directed excavations at the site for decades.Follow us on Google