Why is Cave Art Absent from the Upper Paleolithic Southern Levant?

Despite one hundred years of intensive prehistoric research in the southern Levant, and particularly within the modern boundaries of the State of Israel, no decorated Upper Paleolithic caves were found in the region. Mobile imagery items are also altogether absent or rare. This frustrating state of affairs is completely unexpected, since the Levantine Upper Paleolithic Aurignacian culture bears striking resemblance to its depictions-rich counterpart in western Europe, and mutual contacts between Levantine and European groups seem likely. Moreover, natural caves are found in abundance in the Levant, and some were encountered by Levantine Aurignacian groups. So this absence has nothing to do with technological or cognitive human capabilities, nor with the lack of potential caves. In this paper we explore this intriguing conundrum, examining it in the light of human-animal relationships, prey availability and extinctions, and human ontological and cosmological beliefs. We will do our best to tie all these pieces of the puzzle together in an attempt to shed new light on the mysterious absence of parietal and mobile art from the Upper Paleolithic Levant.