El Khiam (الخیام) is an archaeological site near

Wadi Khureitun Wadi Khureitun or Nahal Tekoa is a wadi in a deep ravine in the Judaean Desert in the West Bank, west of the Dead Sea, springing near Tekoa. Name The Hebrew name, Nahal Tekoa ("Tekoa Stream"), and the English name used in some Christian contexts, ...

in the

Judaean Desert The Judaean Desert or Judean Desert ( he, מִדְבַּר יְהוּדָה, Midbar Yehuda}, both ''Desert of Judah'' or ''Judaean Desert''; ar, صحراء يهودا, Sahraa' Yahuda) is a desert in Palestine and Israel that lies east of Jerusa ...

in the

West Bank The West Bank ( ar, الضفة الغربية, translit=aḍ-Ḍiffah al-Ġarbiyyah; he, הגדה המערבית, translit=HaGadah HaMaʽaravit, also referred to by some Israelis as ) is a landlocked territory near the coast of the Mediter ...

, on the shores of the

Dead Sea The Dead Sea ( he, יַם הַמֶּלַח, ''Yam hamMelaḥ''; ar, اَلْبَحْرُ الْمَيْتُ, ''Āl-Baḥrū l-Maytū''), also known by other names, is a salt lake bordered by Jordan to the east and Israel and the West Bank ...

. Archaeological finds at El Khiam show nearly continuous habitation by groups of hunters since the

Mesolithic The Mesolithic (Greek: μέσος, ''mesos'' 'middle' + λίθος, ''lithos'' 'stone') or Middle Stone Age is the Old World archaeological period between the Upper Paleolithic and the Neolithic. The term Epipaleolithic is often used synonymous ...

and early

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 ...

periods.Archaeological Encyclopedia of the Holy Land, Avraham Negev and Shimon Gibson
/ref> The

Khiamian 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—t ...

period (c. 10000–9500 BCE), named for this site, is characterized by

flint Flint, occasionally flintstone, is a sedimentary cryptocrystalline form of the mineral quartz, categorized as the variety of chert that occurs in chalk or marly limestone. Flint was widely used historically to make stone tools and start fir ...

arrowheads An arrowhead or point is the usually sharpened and hardened tip of an arrow, which contributes a majority of the projectile mass and is responsible for impacting and penetrating a target, as well as to fulfill some special purposes such as s ...

now known as "El-Khiam points".Gopher, Avi., Arrowheads of the neolithic Levant: a seriation analysis, p. 6 & 9, Dissertation Series 10, American Schools of Oriental Research, Eisenbrauns, 1994.
/ref> El Khiam was first excavated by

René Neuville René Neuville (30 October 1899, Gibraltar – 23 June 1952, Jerusalem) was a French prehistorian and diplomat posted to the French consulate in Jerusalem. Diplomatic career Neuville's father was the consul general of France in Gibraltar. He ...

in 1934, 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 ...

in 1951 and in 1961.

Gallery

Image:Khiam point.png, El-Khiam point

microlith A microlith is a small Rock (geology), stone tool usually made of flint or chert and typically a centimetre or so in length and half a centimetre wide. They were made by humans from around 35,000 to 3,000 years ago, across Europe, Africa, Asia an ...

, first found at El Khiam. File:Three El-Khiam points from JQ-101.jpg, Three El-Khiam points.

Gallery

References

Further reading