The archaeology of Israel is the study of the archaeology of the present-day Israel, stretching from prehistory through three millennia of documented history. The ancient Land of Israel was a geographical bridge between the political and cultural centers of Mesopotamia and Egypt.
Despite the importance of the country to three major religions, serious study of the country history only began in the 15th century.Encyclopedia of Zionism and Israel, edited by Raphael Patai, Herzl Press and McGraw-Hill, New York, 1971, vol. I, pp. 66–71 Although he never travelled to the Levant, or even left the Netherlands, the first major work on the antiquities of Israel is considered to be Adriaan Reland's Antiquitates Sacrae veterum Hebraeorum, published in 1708. Edward Robinson, an American theologian who visited the country in 1838, published its first topographical studies. Lady Hester Stanhope performed the first modern excavation at Ashkelon in 1815. A Frenchman, Louis Felicien de Saucy, embarked on early "modern" excavations in 1850.
Today, in Israel, there are some 30,000 sites of antiquity, the vast majority of which have never been excavated.Dr. Eitan Klein of the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA), , Israel Antiquities Authority Official Channel / June 2016, minutes 0:00–0:15 (in Hebrew).
In discussing the state of archaeology in Israel in his time, David Ussishkin commented in the 1980s that the designation "Israeli archaeology" no longer represents a single uniform methodological approach; rather, its scope covers numerous different archaeological schools, disciplines, concepts, and methods currently in existence in Israel.
Archaeological time periods
Paleolithic period
Lower Paleolithic
The beginning of the Lower Paleolithic in Israel is defined by the earliest archaeological finds available. Occasionally, when new, more ancient sites are discovered, the boundaries of this period are redefined. Currently the most ancient site in Israel, and one of the earliest outside of Africa, is Ubeidiya, in the Jordan Rift Valley. Its age is estimated to be between 1.55 and 1.2 million years BP. Many stone tools of the Acheulean culture have been discovered there. Among the other sites from this period is the site at Daughters of Jacob Bridge, which has been dated to 790,000 BP, using paleomagnetism. Some of the earliest evidence of the use of fire and wooden tools has been discovered on this site.
It is estimated that the people who left the remains discovered on the two sites mentioned belonged to the species Homo erectus, although the human fossils found were too few and incomplete to make a positive identification possible. An additional site from the early Lower Paleolithic is the Ruhama Swamp in the northern Negev, which contains remains from the Oldowan culture.
Most of the sites from this period belong to the Acheulean culture, and on many of them remains of elephant bones have been found, together with tools made of flint and basalt. Additional important sites are Revadim, Tabun Cave in Nahal Me'arot Nature Reserve, a site near the city of Holon, and a site located near kibbutz Evron.
At the end of the Lower Paleolithic, between 400,000 and 250,000 BP, the Acheulo-Yabrudian complex emerged. The site near Lake Ram, in the Golan Heights, where the Venus of Berekhat Ram was discovered, probably belongs to this cultural horizon. This statue is considered, by some, to be the earliest artistic representation of the human form. One of the human fossils from this period is the Galilee Skull, part of a skull discovered by Francis Turville-Petre in Mugharet el-Zuttiyeh, in Nahal Amud, which is considered today to be the skull of a Homo heidelbergensis or of an early Homo sapiens. Notable Acheulo-Yabrudian sites are Tabun Cave and Qesem Cave.
In December 2020, archaeologists from the University of Haifa announced the discovery at the Tabun Cave at the Mount Carmel site of the oldest known tool used for grinding or scraping, dating back about 350,000 years. According to researchers, this cobble belongs to the Acheulo-Yabrudian complex from the late Lower Paleolithic and was used by hominids for abrading surfaces.
In February 2022, archaeologists from the Israel Antiquities Authority, led by Professor Ella Been, announced the discovery of a 1.5-million-year-old complete Hominini vertebra. According to the researchers, the fossilized bone belonging to a juvenile between the ages of 6–12 is the oldest evidence of ancient Hominini in the Middle East. This latest discovery has shed new light on the story of prehistoric migration. The lower lumbar vertebra, dated to the Early Pleistocene, differs in size and shape from a 1.8-million-year-old skull unearthed at Dmanisi in the Republic of Georgia. After this discovery, co-author Dr Omry Barzilai concluded that different human species produced the two artifacts.
Middle Paleolithic
This period has been dated to the years 250,000–45,000 BP. Fossils of Neanderthals and of Homo sapiens from this period have been discovered in Israel. The Homo sapiens remains found in Israel are the oldest anatomically modern human remains discovered in this region of the continent of Africa. It is yet unclear whether Neanderthals and Homo sapiens populations coexisted side by side, in this area, or replaced each other as the global climate shifted, as was common during the Pleistocene. Both used the same style of stone tools, identified as the Mousterian culture. Remains of this culture have been discovered all over Israel, in dozens of cave sites and open sites.
Judging by the size and content of these sites it seems the population living in the area of today's Israel in that period was small. Groups were small and they subsisted on hunting, consuming the carcasses of dead animals and gathering plants.
Their preferred game was the Mountain gazelle, the Persian fallow deer, and the Aurochs. In cave sites that had been used as seasonal dwellings in that period dozens of buried human skeletons have been uncovered. The most famous ancient Homo sapiens skeletons are the ones discovered in Es Skhul cave in Nahal Me'arot and in Me'arat Kedumim (Kedumim Cave) in Lower Galilee; the most notable Neanderthal skeletons are from Tabun Cave in Nahal Me'arot, from Kebara Cave, near Zikhron Ya'akov, and from Amud Cave in Nahal Amud. Other important sites are Misliyah Cave and Sephunim Cave in the Carmel and several open sites in the Golan, in the Negev, and in the Coastal plain.
In February 2021, archaeologists from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Haifa University announced the discovery of six lines engraved on a 120,000-year-old aurochs bone near the city of Ramle in the open-air Middle Paleolithic site of Nesher Ramla. According to archaeologist Yossi Zaidner, this finding was definitely the oldest in the Levant. Three-dimensional imaging and microscopic analysis were used to examine the bone. The six lines ranged in length from 38 to 42 millimeters.
Upper Paleolithic
This period in Israel has been dated to between 45,000 BCE and 20,500 BCE, and its sites are associated with two cultural horizons: the Ahmarian culture and the Levantine Aurignacian culture. Some technological advancements were made in this period, including the introduction of new techniques for manufacturing flint tools, the invention of the bow and arrow, and the manufacturing of stone tools intended for grinding food and preparing dyes. Humans began making tools from animal bones and the use of seashells for decoration became widespread.
Parts of skeletons were discovered in various sites, but no cemeteries from this period were ever found. It seems that during this era the Neanderthals disappeared from Israel, as they were going extinct throughout the Middle East and Europe at the time.
Epipaleolithic period
In this era, bridging between the mobile bands of hunter-gatherers of the Paleolithic and the agricultural villages of the Neolithic, three different cultures existed in Israel: the Kebaran culture, dated to 18,000–12,500 BCE, the Kebaran Geometric culture, dated to 12,500–10,500 BCE, and the Natufian culture, dated to 12,500–9,500 BCE.
In March 2026, a study published in Science Advances revealed that children and adults were shaping clay ornaments in the Levant as early as 15,000 years ago. Researchers analyzed 142 beads and pendants found at four Natufian sites in modern-day Israel: el-Wad, Nahal Oren, Hayonim, and Eynan-Mallaha. These objects were hand-formed from unbaked clay into various shapes, including cylinders and discs. Many of the beads were coated in red ochre using a technique called engobe (applying a thin layer of liquid clay).
Neolithic period
The Neolithic period appears to have begun when the peoples of the Natufian culture, which spread across present-day Syria, Israel and Lebanon, began to practice agriculture. This Neolithic Revolution has been linked to the cold period known as the Younger Dryas. This agriculture in the Levant is the earliest known to have been practiced. The Neolithic period in this region is dated 8500–4300 BCE and the Chalcolithic 4300–3300 BCE. The term "Natufian" was coined by Dorothy Garrod in 1928, after identifying an archaeological sequence at Wadi al-Natuf which included a Late Levallois-Mousterian layer and a stratified deposit, the Mesolithic of Palestine, which contained charcoal traces and a microlithic flint tool industry. Natufian sites in Israel include Ain Mallaha, el-Wad, Ein Gev, Hayonim cave, Nahal Oren and Kfar HaHoresh.
Archaeological remains In July 2022, archaeologists from the Israel Antiquities Authority announced the discovery of an 8,000-year-old "Mother Goddess" figurine at Sha'ar HaGolan archaeological site. Anna Eirikh-Rose, co-director of the excavation reported that the 20-centimeter long figurine covered by a bracelet with a red bottom was found broken into 2 pieces. It was sculpted in a sitting position with big hips, a unique pointed hat, what are known as "coffee-bean" eyes, and a big nose.
In June 2024, the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) recently announced the discovery of a well-preserved shipwreck dating back 3,300 years. The wreck, found about 90 kilometers (55 miles) off Israel's Mediterranean coast at a depth of 1,800 meters (1.1 miles), contained hundreds of intact Canaanite jugs used for transporting wine, food oils, fruit, and other goods across the Mediterranean. The wooden ship was discovered by Energean, a natural gas company operating several deep-sea natural gas fields in Israel's territorial waters.
Chalcolithic period
Definition Understanding of the Chalcolithic period in Israel and in the Levant is still far from perfect. It seems that Chalcolithic cultures appeared in the northern Jordan Valley around 4,800 BCE, and in the southern parts of this valley, and, particularly, in Teleilat el-Ghassul, around 4,500 BCE. Though no direct evidence to this effect is currently available, Chalcolithic civilizations may have spread from northern Israel to the south over several centuries during the first half of the 5th millennium BCE. Judging by evidence from the material culture, there seems to be no direct link between the Late Neolithic cultures and the early Chalcolithic cultures that replaced them in this region. The Chalcolithic period ended in Israel around 3,500 BCE with the rise of the Early Bronze civilization.
Chief among the Chalcolithic cultures of the Levant is the Ghassulian culture of the mid to late Chalcolithic. It might have been preceded by the Bsorian culture. The Ghassulian culture itself is made of several subcultures, one of which is the Beersheba culture.
Subsistence