Kebara 2 (or Kebara Mousterian Hominid 2, KMH2) is a 60,000 year-old Levantine Neanderthal mid-body male skeleton. It was discovered in 1983 by Ofer Bar-Yosef, Baruch Arensburg, and Bernard Vandermeersch in a Mousterian layer of Kebara Cave, Israel. To the excavators, its disposition suggested it had been deliberately buried, though like every other putative Middle Palaeolithic intentional burial, this has been questioned.

Kebara 2 is the most complete post-cranial Neanderthal skeleton ever found and has played a major role in three debates on Neanderthal anatomy and behaviour, namely the anatomical constraints of childbirth, their ability to speak, and the shape and size of their chests. The first of these debates it has helped settle, the second it has not, and the third it has sparked by questioning the barrel-shape that Neanderthal chests were thought to have since they were described by Hermann Schaaffhausen in 1858.

It is currently held at Tel Aviv University.

Sources

IHM Kebara

Gignos Citations