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Dating the Prehistoric Site Nahalissaron in the Southern Negev, Israel1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2016

Israel Carmi
Affiliation:
Department of Environmental Science and Energy Research, Weizmann Institute of Science, 76100 Rehovot, Israel
Dror Segal
Affiliation:
Israel Antiquities Authority, P.O.B. 586, 91004 Jerusalem, Israel
A. N. Goring-Morris
Affiliation:
Institute of Archaeology, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 91905 Jerusalem, Israel
Avi Gopher
Affiliation:
Institute of Archaeology, Tel Aviv University, 69978 Tel Aviv, Israel
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Abstract

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The prehistoric site Nahal Issaron is located on the alluvial fan of Nahal Issaron, a short wadi draining into Biqat Uvda some 50 km north of Eilat. Excavated in the early 1980s, it constitutes a major Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (PPNB) layer, with continued but sporadic occupation throughout the Late Neolithic to the Chalcolithic period. In the PPNB layer, a dense agglomeration of rounded, polygonal and rectangular structures was found, with courtyards and a variety of features such as hearths and ovens. The upper layer is badly preserved, apart from the hearths and ovens. Thirty samples from the site were 14C-dated in the Rehovot laboratory and five in the Pretoria laboratory. The results enabled a fine temporal resolution between layers and a refinement of the 7th through 5th millennium bc chronology. The dates also placed the sequence of changes in architecture and lithics within a more robust temporal framework, thus making the site a key chronological anchor in the Neolithic of Southern Israel, Sinai and Jordan.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © The American Journal of Science 

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