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. [1] Garfinkel suggests that these settlement served as seasonal hunting or fishing campsites. [2]
The type-site is named after the nearby Kibbutz Nitzanim, built in an area of coastal dunes. Kibbutz Zikim is further down the coast from Nitzanim. Giv'at Haparsa is a site right next to the beach, between Yavne-Yam and Ashdod. The different spelling between the names of modern towns and the corresponding archaeological sites is a common occurrence in Israeli archaeology.
While Garfinkel suggests that the Nizzanim culture coexisted with the Yarmukian and Lodian cultures, Avi Gopher and Ram Gophna reject the sites as a distinct culture and consider their artifacts to represent a variant of the Lodian culture. [2]
The dating of the Nizzanim culture is unclear mainly because no stratigraphic relations with different periods have been observed. In Garfinkel's opinion, it was contemporary with the Yarmukian and Lodian cultures. Only one proper radiocarbon date from the sites is available (5767–5541 BCE), but dates one of the sites to the time of the Wadi Raba culture (post-dating the Yarmukian and Lodian). This date contradicts the archaeological findings, and most archaeologists agree that they represent the Pottery Neolithic (c. 6400 - 5800 BCE). [2]
The pottery of the Nizzanim culture is characterized by simple and rough designs with very little decorations. This type of pottery is considered very simple in comparison to other Neolithic pottery assemblages, including those of the nearby Yarmukian and Lodian cultures. [2]
The flint tool types are similar to the types of the preceding Pre-Pottery Neolithic tools, with a large number of arrowheads, sickle blades, and hole punchers, while hand axes are relatively scarce. [1]
Lachish was an ancient Canaanite and Israelite city in the Shephelah region of Israel, on the south bank of the Lakhish River, mentioned several times in the Hebrew Bible. The current tell (ruin) by that name, known as Tel Lachish or Tell ed-Duweir, has been identified with the biblical Lachish. Today, it is an Israeli national park operated and maintained by the Israel Nature and Parks Authority. It lies near the present-day moshav of Lakhish.
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In the archaeology of Southwest Asia, the Late Neolithic, also known as the Ceramic Neolithic or Pottery Neolithic, is the final part of the Neolithic period, following on from the Pre-Pottery Neolithic and preceding the Chalcolithic. It is sometimes further divided into Pottery Neolithic A (PNA) and Pottery Neolithic B (PNB) phases.
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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.
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.
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.
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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.
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