Test excavations in 1984 at the middle palaeolithic rockshelter of 'Ain
Difla (Wadi Hasa Survey Site 634) in west-central Jordan produced a lithic
assemblage dominated by elongated levallois points with very few retouched
tools. Length/width ratios of the levallois points and width/thickness
ratios of a sample of complete flakes suggest an affinity with Tabun D/Phase
1 mousterian sites. This kind of assemblage is generally thought to occur
during the early Levantine mousterian. However, there is evidence of
persistence of Tabun D assemblages in the southern Levant until the
middle/upper palaeolithic transition. Comparing the ’Ain Difla lithic
assemblage with those of other Levantine mousterian sites underscores
problems with the analytical frameworks used to ‘date’ sites through
technological and metrical analyses. A rather coarse-grained regional
paleoenvironmental sequence exacerbates these problems.