Ein el-Jarba is a two-period settlement with remains dating to the Early

Chalcolithic The Chalcolithic ( ) (also called the Copper Age and Eneolithic) was an archaeological period characterized by the increasing use of smelted copper. It followed the Neolithic and preceded the Bronze Age. It occurred at different periods in di ...

(6th millennium BC) and the

Early Bronze Age The Bronze Age () was a historical period characterised principally by the use of bronze tools and the development of complex urban societies, as well as the adoption of writing in some areas. The Bronze Age is the middle principal period of ...

IB (4th millennium BC). The Early

settlement is ascribed to the

Wadi Rabah culture The Wadi Rabah culture is a Pottery Neolithic archaeological culture of the Southern Levant, dating to the middle of the 5th millennium BCE. Research This period was first identified at the ancient site of Jericho (Tell es-Sultan) by British a ...

. The site is located in the

Jezreel Valley The Jezreel Valley (from the ), or Marj Ibn Amir (), also known as the Valley of Megiddo, is a large fertile plain and inland valley in the Northern District (Israel), Northern District of Israel. It is bordered to the north by the highlands o ...

, ca. 20 km south-east of

Haifa, Israel Haifa ( ; , ; ) is the third-largest city in Israel—after Jerusalem and Tel Aviv—with a population of in . The city of Haifa forms part of the Haifa metropolitan area, the third-most populous metropolitan area in Israel. It is home to t ...

Geography

The site is located at the foot of the

Menashe Heights The Manasseh Hills or hill country of Manasseh, directly derived from Hebrew: Menashe Heights (), called Bilad ar-Ruha in Arabic, meaning "Land of Winds", is a geographical region in northern Israel, located on the Carmel Range, between Mount Ca ...

, in the

, which was – and still is – a main artery connection the Mediterranean coast with the

Jordan Rift Valley The Jordan Rift Valley, also Jordan Valley ( ''Bīqʿāt haYardēn'', Al-Ghor or Al-Ghawr), is an elongated endorheic basin located in modern-day Israel, Jordan and the West Bank, Palestine. This geographic region includes the entire length o ...

. Ein el-Jarba is today in the vicinity of Kibbutz HaZore'a.

Excavation history

There have been several excavations on the site. Following the uncovering of remains by mechanical work, one season of excavation was conducted by J. Kaplan in 1966. This was followed by remains being discovered in 1979 c. 75m west of the area uncovered by J. Kaplan; a salvage excavation was conducted in 1980 by E. Meyerhof, recording substantial architectural remains. Several other sites with Wadi Rabah remains were uncovered nearby, including Tell Qiri (Baruch 1987), Hazorea (Anati 1971; Anati et al. 1973; Meyerhof 1988), Tell Zeriq (Oshri 2000), Abu Zureiq (Garfinkel and Matskevich 2002) and

Mishmar HaEmek Mishmar HaEmek () is a kibbutz in northern Israel. Located in the western Jezreel Valley, it falls under the jurisdiction of the Megiddo Regional Council. Mishmar HaEmek is one of the few kibbutzim that have not undergone privatization and stil ...

stratum V (Getzov and Barzilai 2011). There was also a surface collection survey conducted in 1973 by E. Anati (1973:29-40). The archaeological work at Ein el-Jarba was renewed in 2013 until 2016 on behalf of the Institute of Archaeology of

Hebrew University of Jerusalem The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJI; ) is an Israeli public university, public research university based in Jerusalem. Co-founded by Albert Einstein and Chaim Weizmann in July 1918, the public university officially opened on 1 April 1925. ...

, directed by Katharina Streit, in cooperation with the

Jezreel Valley Regional Project The Jezreel Valley Regional Project is a long-tem Archaeological survey excavation project exploring the Jezreel Valley, in the southern Levant the Prehistoric through the Ottoman and British Mandate periods in Israel/Palestine. Background T ...

Findings

Periods

The 2013-2016 excavation uncovered a two-period settlement with remains dating to the

IB (4th millennium

cal BC Radiocarbon dating measurements produce ages in "radiocarbon years", which must be converted to calendar ages by a process called calibration. Calibration is needed because the atmospheric / ratio, which is a key element in calculating radiocarbo ...

) and the Early Chalcolithic (6th millennium cal BC).

Early Chalcolithic settlement

A ca. 65 m² large excavation area at Ein el-Jarba excavated by Kaplan in 1966 yielded four phases of Chalcolithic occupation with architectural remains as well as burials (Arensburg 1970). The stratigraphic accumulation between virgin soil and topsoil was only ca. 1 m (Kaplan 1969: 4Kaplan, J. (1969): ‘Ein el-Jarba. Chalcolithic remains in the plain of Esdraelon. Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 194: 2–39.). The Early Chalcolithic phase consists of several floors and decayed mudbrick material, as well as a plastered surface with circular installation. The ceramic assemblage of the Early Chalcolithic phase is dominated by classic Wadi Rabah style pottery.

Early Bronze Age settlement

The Early Bronze Age remains consist of several substrata of oval houses, as well as living floors, pits and a stone lined silo.

References

External links

* http://eineljarba.wordpress.com/ * http://www.jezreelvalleyregionalproject.com/ {{coord, 32.6383, N, 35.1231, E, source:wikidata, display=title Archaeological sites in Israel Jezreel Valley