ISRAEL: Works to widen a motorway in south-central Israel unearth settlement remains dated by archaeologists to the beginning of the eighth millennium BCE.

Record ID: 397939

  • Title: ISRAEL: Works to widen a motorway in south-central Israel unearth settlement remains dated by archaeologists to the beginning of the eighth millennium BCE.
  • Date: 25th November 2013
  • Summary: ESHTA'OL, ISRAEL (NOVEMBER 25, 2013) (REUTERS) EXCAVATION SITE WHERE ARCHAEOLOGISTS DISCOVERED REMAINS OF ANCIENT WALL ARCHAEOLOGISTS AT SITE VARIOUS OF SITE VARIOUS OF REMAINS OF ANCIENT WALL BUILT OVER 10,000 YEARS AGO PARTS OF BUILDING SITE (SOUNDBITE) (English) ARCHAEOLOGIST, AMIR GOLANI, SAYING: (WALKING AND TALKING TO CAMERA) "People lived here over five thousand ye
  • Embargoed: 10th December 2013 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Israel
  • Country: Israel
  • Topics: History,Science
  • Reuters ID: LVAEJCU3HO75PDOA4AA0GG39QA47
  • Story Text: Israeli archeologists said on Monday (November 25) they had discovered an ancient settlement which could be as much as 10,000 years old.
    "People lived here over five thousand years ago not only in this building but in many many buildings next to them. And all these buildings form a complete plan. In this plan we see the beginnings of how society moved from being a village centre society to an urban centre society," said archaeologist Amir Golani at the excavation site.
    The site was accidentally discovered in Judean Shephelah, a lowland in south-central Israel, during works to widen a motorway.
    "The first settlement here was probably because of the stream that existed here back then. Today it of course dried up because we pumped up all the water. Back then there was a stream here and the stream of course not only brought plants, not only brought animals but eventually also brought people," Golani explained.
    Among the rare finds uncovered was a cluster of rare axes.
    "They can be roughly dated to eight thousand years before present, before today and the cash includes axes that were abandoned during the modification process, and axes that were already sharpened and polished," said archaeologist Jacob Vardi.
    Another interesting find was a stone column which archeologists believe could be part of temple.
    "Here in Eshta'ol we found several buildings and among them we found a very interesting a large stone, very large stone, I would say, worked in all six sides like a domino, standing up right as a standing stone. This stone we believe served the cultic function. And we believe during the Chalcolithic period which is 4,500 to 3,800 BCE, there apparently was a cultic centre here and or a temple possibly here in Eshta'ol," said Amir Golani.
    Archeologists said that almost all the building found at the site underwent a number of construction and repair phases which proved that it was a permanent settlement.
    Until that period, Golani explained, people migrated from place to place in search of food.
    The objects they discovered led them to believe there was evidence of transition to permanent dwellings, that it was the beginning of the domestication of animals and plants.
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