Avi Gopher

Last updated

Avi Gopher is an Israeli archaeologist. He is a professor at the University of Tel Aviv. [1]

Contents

Biography

Avraham (Avi) Gopher completed his B.A. at Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1978, M.A. in 1981 and PhD in 1986. [2] He specialises in prehistoric Israel.

Archaeology career

Gopher's work at Qesem with Ran Barkai and Israel Hershkowitz received considerable press coverage. The team claimed to have discovered the oldest homo sapiens remains ever found at the cave near Rosh HaAyin in central Israel. Their paper, published in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology , states that the human teeth they discovered are between 400,000 and 200,000 years old although it was impossible to definitely identify the particular species of human. [3] [4] In an interview, Gopher said "they definitely leave all options open. There's been a tendency for people to get so accustomed to the "out of Africa" hypothesis that they use it exclusively and explain any finding that doesn't fit it as evidence of yet another wave of migration out of Africa." [3]

Gopher and agronomist Shahal Abbo of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem have written a book that challenges the scientific consensus over the domestication of wild plants. They contend that the process of domestication was rapid, well-planned and organized, and that several plant species were domesticated in a single location. [5]

Fieldwork

Published works

Books

Chapters in books, papers and articles

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">El Wad</span> Epipalaeolithic archaeological site in Mount Carmel, Israel

El Wad is an Epipalaeolithic archaeological site in Mount Carmel, Israel. The site has two components: El Wad Cave, also known as Mugharat el-Wad or HaNahal Cave ; and El Wad Terrace, located immediately outside the cave.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tabun Cave</span> Cave in northern Israel

The Tabun Cave is an excavated site located at Nahal Me'arot Nature Reserve, Israel and is one of the Human Evolution sites at Mount Carmel, which were proclaimed as having universal value by UNESCO in 2012.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ghassulian</span> Chalcolithic culture and archaeological stage

Ghassulian refers to a culture and an archaeological stage dating to the Middle and Late Chalcolithic Period in the Southern Levant. Its type-site, Teleilat Ghassul, is located in the eastern Jordan Valley near the northern edge of the Dead Sea, in modern Jordan. It was excavated in 1929-1938 and in 1959–1960, by the Jesuits. Basil Hennessy dug at the site in 1967 and in 1975–1977, and Stephen Bourke in 1994–1999.

Baruch Arensburg, professor of Anatomy, Sackler School of Medicine, Tel-Aviv University (emeritus), is a physical anthropologist whose main field of study has been prehistoric and historic populations of the Levant.

Rafi Greenberg (Rafael) is a senior lecturer in archaeology at Tel Aviv University.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yosef Garfinkel</span> Israeli archaeologist (born 1956)

Yosef Garfinkel is an Israeli archaeologist and academic. He is a professor of Prehistoric Archaeology and of Archaeology of the Biblical Period at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yiftahel</span>

Yiftahel is an archaeological site located in the Lower Galilee in northern Israel. Various salvage excavations took place here between 1992 and 2008. The best known periods of occupation are the Early Bronze Age I and Pre-Pottery Neolithic B.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tel Tsaf</span> Archaeological site in Israel

Tel Tsaf is an archaeological site located in the central Jordan Valley, south-east of Beit She'an. It was first tested in 1978–1980 by Ram Gophna of Tel Aviv University. In 2004–2007 a large excavation project was conducted at the site by Yosef Garfinkel of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Since 2013 the University of Haifa and the Zinman institute of archaeology started the renewed excavation of Tel Tsaf. Tel Tsaf is dated to ca. 5200–4700 BC, sometimes called the Middle Chalcolithic, a little-known period in the archaeology of the Levant, post-dating the Wadi Rabah phase and pre-dating the Ghassulian Chalcolithic phase.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gesher (archaeological site)</span> Archaeological site in Israel

Gesher is an archaeological site located on the southern bank of Nahal Tavor, near kibbutz Gesher in the central Jordan Valley of Israel. It bears signs of occupation from two periods, the very early Neolithic and the Middle Bronze Age. The site was first excavated between 1986 and 1987 by Yosef Garfinkel of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and between 2002 and 2004 by Susan Cohen of Montana State University. The average of 4 radiocarbon dating results suggested inhabitation of the settlement around 8000 BC.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yarmukian culture</span> Late Neolithic archaeological culture of the Southern Levant

The Yarmukian culture was a Pottery Neolithic A (PNA) culture of the ancient Levant. It was the first culture in prehistoric Syria and one of the oldest in the Levant to make use of pottery. The Yarmukian derives its name from the Yarmuk River, which flows near its type site of Sha'ar HaGolan, near Kibbutz Sha'ar HaGolan at the foot of the Golan Heights. This culture existed alongside the Lodian, or Jericho IX culture and the Nizzanim culture to the south.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Qesem cave</span> Archaeological site

Qesem cave is a Lower Paleolithic archaeological site near the city of Kafr Qasim in Israel. Early humans were occupying the site by 400,000 until c. 200,000 years ago.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Amos Frumkin</span> Israeli geologist and speleologist

Amos Frumkin is an Israeli geologist and speleologist.

Adrian Nigel Goring-Morris is a British-born archaeologist and a professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel. He completed his PhD there in 1986 and is notable for his work and discoveries at one of the oldest ritual burial sites in the world; Kfar HaHoresh. The earliest levels of this site have been dated to 8000 BC and it is located in the northern Israel, not far from Nazareth.

Horvat Galil is an archaeological site in the Upper Galilee, Israel, 13 kilometres (8.1 mi) from the coast of the Mediterranean.

Mujahia or Nab‘a el-Mjảḥiyye is an archaeological site in the southern Golan Heights, north of Bnei Yehuda.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Steven A. Rosen</span>

Steven A Rosen is the Canada Chair in Near Eastern Archaeology in the Archaeological Division of the Department of Bible, Archaeology and Ancient Near East at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. He serves as the Vice President for External Affairs. His research has focused on two general areas, the continued use of chipped stone tools in the periods during which metals were already exploited, and the archaeology of mobile pastoralists, using the Negev as an in-depth case study.

The Wadi Rabah culture is a Pottery Neolithic archaeological culture of the Southern Levant, dating to the middle of the 5th millennium BCE.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anna Belfer-Cohen</span> Israeli archaeologist

Anna Belfer-Cohen is an Israeli archaeologist and paleoanthropologist and Professor Emeritus at the Institute of Archaeology, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Belfer-Cohen excavated and studied many important prehistoric sites in Israel including Hayonim and Kebara Caves and open-air sites such as Nahal Ein Gev I and Nahal Neqarot. She has also worked for many years in the Republic of Georgia, where she made important contributions to the study of the Paleolithic sequence of the Caucasus following her work at the cave sites of Dzoudzuana, Kotias and Satsrublia. She is a specialist in biological Anthropology, prehistoric art, lithic technology, the Upper Paleolithic and modern humans, the Natufian-Neolithic interface and the transition to village life.

Tel Ro'im West is a prehistoric archaeological site in the eastern slopes of the Naftali Mountains, where it descends into the Hula Valley in northern Israel. The site offers a variety of resources including water, animals, and plants. It is surrounded by fertile soil to its south and east. In 2004, prior to road construction work, a salvage excavation took place. Two areas were excavated and within them, four settlement phases (strata) from the Pre-Pottery Neolithic and Pottery Neolithic periods were uncovered. The findings represent a northern-Levantine material culture, which implies this region has been a boundary between the material culture of the northern and southern Levant.

References

  1. Estrin, Daniel., Archaeologists May Have Found the Earliest Evidence Yet for the Existence of Modern Man, Art Daily, Article from Associated Press, 27 December 2010.
  2. Prof. Avraham Gopher, Tel Aviv University
  3. 1 2 Watzman, Haim (31 December 2010). "Human remains spark spat". Nature. doi:10.1038/news.2010.700 . Retrieved 16 November 2013.
  4. Hershkovitz, Israel; Patricia Smith; Rachel Sarig; Rolf Quam; Laura Rodríguez; Rebeca García; Juan Luis Arsuaga; Ran Barkai8; Avi Gopher (April 2011). "Middle pleistocene dental remains from Qesem Cave (Israel)". American Journal of Physical Anthropology. 144 (4): 575–592. doi:10.1002/ajpa.21446. PMID   21404234.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  5. Israeli Researchers Trying to Force a Major Rethink of Prehistoric Agriculture in Area, Haaretz
  6. Avi Gopher (1989). The flint assemblages of Munhata: final report. Association Paléorient. Retrieved 23 March 2011.
  7. Avi Gopher (November 1994). Arrowheads of the neolithic Levant: a seriation analysis. Eisenbrauns. ISBN   978-0-931464-76-8 . Retrieved 23 March 2011.
  8. Avi Gopher; Estelle Orrelle; Association Paléorient; France. Direction générale des relations culturelles, scientifiques et techniques (1995). The ground stone assemblages of Munhata: a Neolithic site in the Jordan Valley, Israel: a report. Association Paléorient. Retrieved 23 March 2011.
  9. Avi Gopher; Tseviḳah Tsuḳ (1996). The Naḥal Qanah cave: earliest gold in the Southern Levant. Institute of Archaeology of Tel Aviv University Publications Section. ISBN   978-965-440-005-3 . Retrieved 23 March 2011.
  10. Ofer Bar-Yosef; Eitan Tchernov; Avi Gopher (1997). An early neolithic village in the Jordan Valley. Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University. ISBN   978-0-87365-547-7 . Retrieved 23 March 2011.
  11. Emanuel Eisenberg; Avi Gopher; Raphael Greenberg (2001). Tel Te'o: a neolithic, chalcolithic, and early bronze age site in the Ḥula Valley. Israel Antiquities Authority. ISBN   978-965-406-142-1 . Retrieved 23 March 2011.
  12. Ofer Bar-Yosef; Avi Gopher; A. Nigel Goring-Morris (21 September 2010). Gilgal: Early Neolithic Occupations in the Lower Jordan Valley: The Excavations of Tamar Noy. OXBOW. ISBN   978-1-84217-413-5 . Retrieved 23 March 2011.