Abstract
Recent survey and excavation at Tel ‘Ein Jezreel, located in the Jezreel Valley directly above the spring of ‘Ein Jezreel, revealed evidence for settlement from the Neolithic Period through the modern era. (The Jezreel Expedition was sponsored by The Zinman Institute of Archaeology, University of Haifa, Israel and the University of Evansville, Indiana, USA. One survey season (2012) and six seasons of excavation (2013–2018) were co-directed by Norma Franklin (University of Haifa) and Jennie Ebeling (University of Evansville). While most of the finds date to the Early Bronze Age, there is also substantial evidence for settlement in the Late Neolithic and Chalcolithic periods. This essay presents some of the pottery, flint, and ground stone artifacts from the Yarmukian culture of the Pottery Neolithic period, the Wadi Rabah culture of the Late Pottery Neolithic/Early Chalcolithic, and the Ghassulian culture of the Late Chalcolithic period. The significance of these finds is discussed within the broader context of Neolithic and Chalcolithic settlement in the Jezreel Valley and adjacent areas.
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Notes
- 1.
This material came from a very brief survey conducted in the mid-1990s by a few team members of the Tel Jezreel excavation team of Tel Aviv University and the British School of Archaeology in Jerusalem (BSAJ).
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Acknowledgments
The Jezreel Expedition was co-sponsored by The Zinman Institute of Archaeology of the University of Haifa and the University of Evansville; consortium partners include Campbell University, Chapman University, Moravian Theological Seminary, San Francisco Theological Seminary/Graduate Theological Union, University of Arizona, Vanderbilt University, Villanova University, and Wesley Theological Seminary. We thank the Foundation for Biblical Archaeology, the American Society of Overseas Research (ASOR), members of Kibbutz Yizrael, and many others for their support. Thanks are also due to S. Haad for preparing the plates.
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Shooval, T., Cipin, I., Pinsky, S., Ebeling, J., Franklin, N., Rosenberg, D. (2023). Tel ‘Ein Jezreel in the Neolithic and Chalcolithic Periods: New Finds, New Insights. In: Ben-Yosef, E., Jones, I.W.N. (eds) “And in Length of Days Understanding” (Job 12:12). Interdisciplinary Contributions to Archaeology. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-27330-8_8
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