Molluscs and Echinoderms from Palaeolithic deposits in the Rock Shelter of Ksâr'akil, Lebanon

INTRODUCTION The palaeolithic deposits of the rock shelter of Ksâr'Akil in the Antelias valley have been excavated by a group of American Jesuits in the years 1937-1938 and 1947-1948. Recently the fossil bones from these deposits were reported upon by my colleague Hooijer (1961). When he received the material for description it appeared that his samples contained a large collection of molluscan shells and a few spines of echinoderms as well. These are dealt with in the present paper. To the best of my knowledge they are all the remains of molluscs and echinoderms found during the excavation. For further details on the collection and the site I refer to Hooijer's paper, which also contains references to the literature on Ksâr'Akil. A few shells from the neighbouring site Abri Bergy (cf. Hooijer, 1961, p. 56) are mentioned in my list of Mollusca under nos. 6 and 26. MOLLUSCA Shells of 45 species of Mollusca have been collected in the rock shelter of Ksâr'Akil. They belong to marine, freshwater, and terrestrial molluscs. All the species recorded are still living in the neighbourhood of the locality. The following is an annotated list of these Mollusca. Unless otherwise stated the data on the bathymetrical distribution of marine species have been borrowed from the list on page 808 seq. of volume 2 of the book by Bucquoy, Dautzenberg, and Dollfus. Information on the distribution of non-marine species was found in Germain's publication of 1921/1922, and in the literature cited in that paper. Fragments, which are relatively scarce in the material, have been counted for so many specimens as they must at least represent. CLASS GASTROPODA