Munhata (Horvat Minha or Khirbet Munhata) is an

archaeological site An archaeological site is a place (or group of physical sites) in which evidence of past activity is preserved (either prehistoric or historic or contemporary), and which has been, or may be, investigated using the discipline of archaeology an ...

south of

Lake Tiberias The Sea of Galilee ( he, יָם כִּנֶּרֶת, Judeo-Aramaic: יַמּא דטבריא, גִּנֵּיסַר, ar, بحيرة طبريا), also called Lake Tiberias, Kinneret or Kinnereth, is a freshwater lake in Israel. It is the lowest ...

Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

on the north bank and near the outlet of Nahal Tavor (Tabor Stream) on a terrace below sea level.

Excavations

The area of in the

Jordan Valley The Jordan Valley ( ar, غور الأردن, ''Ghor al-Urdun''; he, עֵמֶק הַיַרְדֵּן, ''Emek HaYarden'') forms part of the larger Jordan Rift Valley. Unlike most other river valleys, the term "Jordan Valley" often applies just to ...

was first excavated in 1962 by

Jean Perrot Jean Perrot (1920 – 24 December 2012) was a French archaeologist who specialised in the late prehistory of the Middle East and Near East. Biography Perrot was a graduate of the Ecole du Louvre where he studied under two experts in Syrian arc ...

. The deposits on site were deep and divided up into six distinct layers of occupation. These have been divided into

PPNB Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (PPNB) is part of the Pre-Pottery Neolithic, a Neolithic culture centered in upper Mesopotamia and the Levant, dating to years ago, that is, 8800–6500 BC. It was typed by British archaeologist Kathleen Kenyon during h ...

aceramic during levels six to three, with later

Neolithic The Neolithic period, or New Stone Age, is an Old World archaeological period and the final division of the Stone Age. It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several parts ...

and

Chalcolithic The Copper Age, also called the Chalcolithic (; from grc-gre, χαλκός ''khalkós'', "copper" and ''líthos'', "stone") or (A)eneolithic (from Latin '' aeneus'' "of copper"), is an archaeological period characterized by regular ...

, Yarmukian and Wadi Rabah cultures in levels two and one.

Construction

Buildings in the earlier stages had stone, paved or plastered floors made of mud bricks on stone foundations with remains of hearths and other stone structures. The north walls of buildings contained a plastered niche, a feature found in a similar room in

Jericho Jericho ( ; ar, أريحا ; he, יְרִיחוֹ ) is a Palestinian city in the West Bank. It is located in the Jordan Valley, with the Jordan River to the east and Jerusalem to the west. It is the administrative seat of the Jericho Gove ...

. The

levels also revealed an unusual circular

courtyard A courtyard or court is a circumscribed area, often surrounded by a building or complex, that is open to the sky. Courtyards are common elements in both Western and Eastern building patterns and have been used by both ancient and contemporary ...

structure with rooms radiating out from it and a large platform with channels cut in it associated with a pebble lined trough, presumably used for craft purposes. The Yarmoukian phase continued with round buildings which developed into rectangular ones in the Rabah phase. A major break in settlement was detected between levels three and two, where the early levels were covered over with sandy soil.

Culture

Various flint tools and arrowheads were recovered from the site. Arrowheads had distinctive tangs (some barbed) with wings and pointed shoulders, some were diamond or leaf shaped and a few were notched. Finely denticulated

sickle A sickle, bagging hook, reaping-hook or grasshook is a single-handed agricultural tool designed with variously curved blades and typically used for harvesting, or reaping, grain crops or cutting succulent forage chiefly for feeding livestock, ei ...

blades were found in large numbers with other tools including end scrapers, blades, burins and borers. One piece of

obsidian Obsidian () is a naturally occurring volcanic glass formed when lava extrusive rock, extruded from a volcano cools rapidly with minimal crystal growth. It is an igneous rock. Obsidian is produced from felsic lava, rich in the lighter elements s ...

was found in level six that originated from the same place as a piece from

El Khiam El Khiam (الخیام) is an archaeological site near Wadi Khureitun in the Judaean Desert in the West Bank, on the shores of the Dead Sea. Archaeological finds at El Khiam show nearly continuous habitation by groups of hunters since the Mesolit ...

. Grinding tools were also found including

pestle and mortar Mortar and pestle is a set of two simple tools used from the Stone Age to the present day to prepare ingredients or substances by crushing and grinding them into a fine paste or powder in the kitchen, laboratory, and pharmacy. The ''mortar'' () ...

s of basalt or limestone, polishers, rubbers and grooved stones.

Stoneware Stoneware is a rather broad term for pottery or other ceramics fired at a relatively high temperature. A modern technical definition is a Vitrification#Ceramics, vitreous or semi-vitreous ceramic made primarily from stoneware clay or non-refracto ...

vessels were found along with a few greenstone beads. The site was also notable for finds of clay figurines of males, females and animals.

Dating

Radio-carbon dating Radiocarbon dating (also referred to as carbon dating or carbon-14 dating) is a method for determining the age of an object containing organic material by using the properties of radiocarbon, a radioactive isotope of carbon. The method was dev ...

of the site had large stated errors due to problematic dating materials but gave dates between ca. 7210 and 5420 BC. These provide a vague suggestion of the age of the site. Typological comparisons have been made of various artifacts highlighting a certain regional variation with more elaborate design arrowheads and less pressure flaking. This equates generally with the PPNB stages of Jericho and Beidha suggesting that occupations overlapped with these sites and a date of occupation during the middle and late 7th millennium BC.

References