Bir al-Maksur or Beer el-Maksura is an Arab Bedouin local council in the Northern District of Israel located 15 kilometres (9.3 mi) north-west of Nazareth. In 2022 its population was 10,175. The villagers belong to the Arab el-Hujeirat Bedouin tribe, settled there in the 1950s.
Sulam is an Arab village in north-eastern Israel. Known in ancient times as Shunama and Shunem, it is first mentioned in the Amarna Letters in the 14th century BCE. Archaeological excavations in the village attest to habitation extending from the Bronze Age through to modern times. Located near Afula, it falls under the jurisdiction of Bustan al-Marj Regional Council. In 2022 it had a population of 2,710.
Zemer is an Arab local council in the Central District of Israel. It is located in the Arab Triangle area, between Baqa al-Gharbiyye and Bat Hefer on Road 574. Zemer is the result of a merger of four villages – Bir al-Sika, Ibtan, Marja and Yama - in 1988.
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.
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.
Tel Tsaf is an archaeological site located in the central Jordan Valley, south-east of Beit She'an. Tel Tsaf is dated to the Middle Chalcolithic a little-known period in the archaeology of the Levant, post-dating the Pottery Neolithic B phase of the Wadi Rabah Culture and pre-dating the Ghassulian of the Late Chalcolithic.
Tel Ali is an archaeological site located one mile south of the Sea of Galilee, in the central Jordan Valley, Israel. It has been excavated twice. First, during the years 1955–1959, Moshe Prausnitz conducted salvage excavations on behalf of the Israel Department of Antiquities. He published only preliminary reports and most of the excavation finds remained unstudied. Prausnitz uncovered a detailed sequence of occupation including: Pre-Pottery Neolithic B, Pre-Pottery Neolithic C, Pottery Neolithic B, Middle Chalcolithic and Late Chalcolithic (Ghassulian). However, at the time of excavation many of these phases had not yet been defined.
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.
Abu Zurayq is a cluster of archaeological sites at a well-watered spot at the western edge of the Jezreel Valley and its transition to the Menashe Heights, next to Highway 66, between the modern kibbutzim of HaZore'a and Mishmar HaEmek.
Baysamun or Beisamoun was a small Palestinian Arab village, located 16.5 kilometers (10.3 mi) in the marshy Hula Valley northeast of Safad. In 1945, it had a population of 20. It was depopulated during the 1948 War on May 25, 1948, by the Palmach's First Battalion in Operation Yiftach.
Tel Shimron is an archaeological site and nature reserve in the Jezreel Valley.
The Khiamian culture is a Neolithic archaeological culture of Southwest Asia, dating to the earliest part of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA), around 9,700 to 8,600 BC. It is primarily characterised by a distinctive type of stone arrowhead—the "El Khiam point"—first found at the type site of El Khiam.
Avi Gopher is an Israeli archaeologist. He is a professor at the University of Tel Aviv.
'En Esur, also En Esur or Ein Asawir, is an ancient site located on the northern Sharon Plain, at the entrance of the Wadi Ara pass leading from the Coastal Plain further inland. The site includes an archaeological mound (tell), called Tel Esur or Tell el-Asawir, another unnamed mound, and two springs, one of which gives the site its name.
The Lodian culture or Jericho IX culture is a Pottery Neolithic archaeological culture of the Southern Levant dating from the first half of the 5th millennium BC, existing alongside the Yarmukian and Nizzanim cultures. The Lodian culture appears mainly in areas south of the territory of the Yarmukian culture, in the Shfela and the beginning of the Israeli coastal plain; the Judaean Mountains, and in the desert regions around the Dead Sea and south of it.
Sha'ar HaGolan is a Neolithic archaeological site near Kibbutz Sha'ar HaGolan in Israel. The type site of the Yarmukian culture, it is notable for the discovery of a significant number of artistic objects, as well as some of the earliest pottery in the Southern Levant.
Tel Shem, or Tell esh Shemmam, is an archaeological site located south of Kfar Yehoshua, in the Jezreel Valley, northern Israel. The Nahalal stream, a tributary of the Kishon River, flows east of the site. The site used to include a tell but it was flattened for agricultural use and it can no longer be seen on the surface. Fragments of building blocks and potsherds can be found scattered on the agricultural fields around the site and are usually exposed after the rain. Residents of Kfar Yehoshua have collected ancient artifacts from the site and put them as decorations in their homes. Those include complete vessels and figurines made of stone and pottery. The site was surveyed by Israeli archaeologist Avner Raban and a salvage excavation took place for the first time in 2013. The studies showed that although small, Tel Shem had human presence through almost every period from the Neolithic until the Byzantine rule, as well as during the Mamluk and Ottoman periods. A station of the old Jezreel Valley railway near Kfar Yehoshua was named after the site which was still visible in the beginning of the 20th century, before it was changed to "Kfar Yehoshua Station".
Khirbet er-Ra'i, also Khirbet al-Ra'i, is an archaeological site in the Shephelah region of Israel. It is located 4 km west of Lachish.
The Nizzanim culture is a suggested archaeological culture from the Pottery Neolithic of the Southern Levant. It was identified in three sites spread over a small area on the southern coastal plain of modern Israel, including the type site of Nizzanim, Giv'at Haparsa, and Ziqim. The sites were studied by Ya'akov Olami, Felix Burian, Erich Friedman, Shmuel Yeivin, and Yosef Garfinkel. In those sites, there were no architectural remains but pits and floor levels with hearths. These findings seem to represent a pastoral-nomadic population, similar to the precedeeing population of Pre-Pottery Neolithic Ashkelon and the Qatifian culture. Garfinkel suggests that these settlement served as seasonal hunting or fishing campsites.
