CRANNOG

C'è tutto: il "wattle and daub", i pali costituenti una costruzione circolare (in realtà una specie di palafitta fortificata), una datazione al radiocarbonio di 5.000 anni fa ed un'ipotesi ricostruttiva degli edifici suddetti (abbastanza rari)  e della società del Neolitico che li costruì con strumenti di pietra, ovviamente. 
Chissà poi perché non parlano di Sciardana....

5,000-year-old fort found in Monmouth 

ArchaeoHeritage, Archaeology, Breakingnews, Europe, UK, Western Europe 

Archaeologists in Monmouth have discovered the remains of an ancient wooden building that dates back 5,000 years. 

An artist impression of what the fort looked like nearly 5,000 years ago  

[Credit: Monmouth Archaeological Society] 

Steve Clarke, who two years ago uncovered the remains of a huge post-glacial lake at the Parc Glyndwr building site, said the timber remains found under the new Rockfield estate were once part of a crannog, an ancient fortified dwelling built into a lake. 

Part of the wooden building set into the bed of what was once Monmouth’s prehistoric lake, pre-dates the only other known crannog in England and Wales by 2,000 years. 

The New Stone Age timber (Neolithic), which was skilfully worked with a stone axe, was unearthed during the digging of house foundations at Jordan Way off Watery Lane by Martin Tuck of the Glamorgan Gwent Archaeological Trust in 2003 while overseeing the construction of the estate. 
It was preserved beneath the clay and peat of a lagoon which formed when the lake drained some 2,000 years ago and was recently given to Monmouth Archaeological Society whose professional wing- Monmouth Archaeology- is to be the archaeological unit covering the construction of 450 new homes on Wonastow Road. 

A slab of timber was discovered when the estate was constructed in 2003  [Credit: Monmouth Archaeological Society] 

The timber was sent to the Scottish Universities Environmental Research Centre in Glasgow for a radiocarbon study to be carried out which produced a date of 2,917 years BC.

The study took several months and was funded by the Monmouth Society. Mr Clarke, 72, who is the chairman and founding member of Monmouth Archaeological Society, said it is a very important and exciting discovery. 
“This is only the second one in England and Wales, the other being at Llangorse Lake, near Brecon.” 
“The timber, bearing cut marks left by stone or flint axes, formed the end of an oak post which had been carefully levelled to create a flat surface which would probably have rested on a post pad set in the bottom of the lake.” 

A reconstructed crannog at Llangorse Lake, Wales 

 [Credit: Monmouth Archaeological Society] 

“Archaeologists are excited, not only by the state and date of the timber, but also because the remains were so far out from the shore of the lake that the post has to be part of a building set on poles- called a crannog.” 

Crannogs are defended wooden structures found in Ireland and Scotland and date from the Stone Age onwards. 
They are thought to have been a mark of power and status- the one at Llangorse being claimed as a royal residence of the Dark Age King of Brycheiniog. 
“Martin realised the importance of the timber and kept it in water before handing it to us for our archives,” said Mr Clarke. 

Author: Kath Skellon | Source: Free Press

 [July 22, 2015]

Il colore dei mesolitici

Gli studi più recenti lasciano concludere che i cacciatori raccoglitori europei (in questo caso, della Spagna) del Mesolitico avevano la pelle scura. analogamente a quelli indiani. Poi, per un processo che fu - più probabilmente - di selezione ed incroci, la colorazione si schiarì, in modo più completo in europa ed in modo variegato in India. Un altro fatto rilevante - anche se più tecnico - è l'appartenenza allall'aplogruppo Y C6: questo permette di concludere che l'aplogruppo C6 sia stato pan-eurasiatico. Ciò è importante, in quanto sembra essere legato a più elevate difese contro le infezioni, che sarebbero divenute indubbiamente più frequenti con l'introduzione dell'allevamento e la maggiore densità di popolazione del Neolitico.

Gli Europei di 7.000 anni fa avevano occhi blu e pelle scura: l'aspetto delle antiche popolazioni di cacciatori-raccoglitori è stato ricostruito per la prima volta grazie all'analisi del Dna dei resti di un individuo vissuto nel Mesolitico in Spagna. Il risultato, pubblicato sulla rivista Nature, si deve al gruppo coordinato da Carles Lalueza-Fox, dell'Istituto di Biologia Evolutiva a Barcellona.

I resti dell'uomo sono stati scoperti nel 2006 con un altro scheletro maschile nel sito La Brana - Arintero in Valdelugueros, nel Nord della Spagna. Entrambi gli uomini sono vissuti nel Mesolitico, il periodo compreso fra 10.000 a 5.000 anni fa (tra il Paleolitico e Neolitico), che si conclude con l'avvento dell'agricoltura e l'allevamento, pratiche arrivate dal Medio Oriente.

La ricerca è stata condotto sul Dna estratto da un dente di uno dei due uomini, indicato come La Brana 1. L'analisi mostra come alcune nuove abitudini introdotte dall'agricoltura abbiano influenzato le popolazioni, facendo emergere nuovi geni associati con il sistema immunitario e la dieta. L'arrivo del Neolitico, con una dieta a base di carboidrati e nuovi agenti (come virus batteri e parassiti) trasmessi dagli animali domestici, ha comportato infatti problemi metabolici e immunologici che si sono tradotti in adattamenti genetici nelle popolazioni. Tra questi vi è la capacità di digerire il lattosio, che il cacciatore-raccoglitore di La Brana infatti non aveva.

L'uomo aveva anche difficoltà a digerire gli alimenti contenenti amidi rispetto agli agricoltori del Neolitico. Per quanto riguarda l'aspetto fisico: il mix di occhi azzurri, pelle d'ebano e capelli scuri suggerisce che il passaggio alla pelle più chiara degli europei moderni era ancora in corso durante il Mesolitico ma il colore degli occhi era cambiato prima. ''La sorpresa più grande - osserva Lalueza-Fox - è stata scoprire che questa persona possedeva versioni dei geni africani che determinano la pigmentazione della pelle, il che indica che aveva la pelle scura, anche se non possiamo stabilire l'esatta tonalità''. Ma per l'esperto, ancora più sorprendente è, contemporaneamente, la presenza di geni responsabili degli occhi azzurri negli europei di oggi.

Il Dna dell'antico uomo racconta anche le sue parentele: aveva un antenato comune con i coloni del sito Paleolitico di Mal'ta, vicino al lago Baikal in Siberia. Inoltre i suoi 'parenti' attuali potrebbero essere nel Nord Europa, come Svezia e Finlandia, le cui popolazioni sono le più vicine sotto il profilo genetico. Dati, conclude Lalueza-Fox, che indicano ''una continuità genetica nelle popolazioni dell'Eurasia centrale e occidentale''.

Brown-skinned, blue-eyed, Y-haplogroup C-bearing European hunter-gatherer from Spain (Olalde et al. 2014)

Ricostruzione ipotetica dell'aspetto di un cacciatore raccoglitore mesolitico europeo: pelle scura, occhi azzurri

There is nothing like a little ancient DNA weirdness to start off 2014, which promises to be as exciting as 2013 was.

The new study La Brana 1 identifies it as ancestral in the SLC24A5 locus in which virtually all Europeans are derived. This comes in the heels of the Loschbour preprint which identified that sample from Luxembourg as also being ancestral. Taken together, it's now clear that hunter-gatherers from Mesolithic Western Europe were brown.

Curiously, it now seems that both Europe and India were (in part) inhabited by brown people and became lighter by a process of admixture + selection. The process went "all the way" in Europe, but a cline of pigmentation was sustained in India.

The other finding (not mentioned in the abstract) is that La Brana 1 belonged to Y-haplogroup C6! This is a low-frequency European clade of haplogroup C. So now, we have evidence that haplogroup C is not eastern Eurasian (as the presence of its subclades in Australia, India, East Asia, and the Americas might suggest), but a pan-Eurasian entity. It remains to be seen whether this C-in-Europe can be pushed further back in time, but finding it in Mesolithic Iberia reduces the chance that it's some random eastern Eurasian who made it to the outskirts of Europe recently.

Finally, La Brana 1 has derived alleles at loci associated with pathogen resistance. This might be important, because a common hypothesis is that Europeans developed this type of resistance during the Neolithic as they started interacting with the pathogens of domesticated species and started living in less-hygienic higher-density settlements.


Nature (2014) doi:10.1038/nature12960

Derived immune and ancestral pigmentation alleles in a 7,000-year-old Mesolithic European 

Iñigo Olalde et al.

Ancient genomic sequences have started to reveal the origin and the demographic impact of farmers from the Neolithic period spreading into Europe1, 2, 3. The adoption of farming, stock breeding and sedentary societies during the Neolithic may have resulted in adaptive changes in genes associated with immunity and diet. However, the limited data available from earlier hunter-gatherers preclude an understanding of the selective processes associated with this crucial transition to agriculture in recent human evolution. Here we sequence an approximately 7,000-year-old Mesolithic skeleton discovered at the La Braña-Arintero site in León, Spain, to retrieve a complete pre-agricultural European human genome. Analysis of this genome in the context of other ancient samples suggests the existence of a common ancient genomic signature across western and central Eurasia from the Upper Paleolithic to the Mesolithic. The La Braña individual carries ancestral alleles in several skin pigmentation genes, suggesting that the light skin of modern Europeans was not yet ubiquitous in Mesolithic times. Moreover, we provide evidence that a significant number of derived, putatively adaptive variants associated with pathogen resistance in modern Europeans were already present in this hunter-gatherer.

-----------------------------

Spanish hunter-gatherer had blue eyes and dark skin 

La Braña 1, name used to baptize a 7,000 years old individual from the Mesolithic Period, whose remains were recovered at La Braña-Arintero site in Valdelugueros (León, Spain) had blue eyes and dark skin. These details are the result of a study conducted by Carles Lalueza-Fox, researcher from the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), in collaboration with the Centre for GeoGenetics (Denmark). La Braña 1 represents the first recovered genome of an European hunter-gatherer. The research is published in Nature 

The skeleton of La Braña 1, as it was discovered in 2006 [Credit: J.M. Vidal Encina] 

The Mesolithic, a period that lasted from 10,000 to 5,000 years ago (between the Paleolithic and the Neolithic), ends with the advent of agriculture and livestock farming, coming from the Middle-East. The arrival of the Neolithic, with a carbohydrate-based diet and new pathogens transmitted by domesticated animals, entailed metabolic and immunological challenges that were reflected in genetic adaptations of post-Mesolithic populations. Among these is the ability to digest lactose, which La Braña individual could not do. Lalueza-Fox states: "However, the biggest surprise was to discover that this individual possessed African versions in the genes that determine the light pigmentation of the current Europeans, which indicates that he had dark skin, although we can not know the exact shade." 

La Braña 1, the name used to baptize a 7,000-year-old individual from the Mesolithic Period, had blue eyes and dark skin [Credit: Spanish National Research Council] 

CSIC researcher, who works at the Institute of Evolutionary Biology (a joint centre of CSIC and the University Pompeu Fabra (UPF), located in Barcelona, adds: "Even more surprising was to find that he possessed the genetic variations that produce blue eyes in current Europeans, resulting in a unique phenotype in a genome that is otherwise clearly northern European." The study of the genome suggests that current populations nearest to La Braña 1 are in northern Europe, such as Sweden and Finland. In addition, the work points out that La Braña 1 has a common ancestor with the settlers of the Upper Paleolithic site of Mal'ta, located in Lake Baikal (Siberia), whose genome was recovered a few months ago. Lalueza-Fox concludes: "These data indicate that there is genetic continuity in the populations of central and western Eurasia. In fact, these data are consistent with the archeological remains, as in other excavations in Europe and Russia, including the site of Mal'ta, anthropomorphic figures -called Paleolithic Venus- have been recovered and they are very similar to each other." 

Frontal view of the La Braña 1 skull [Credit: J.M. Vidal Encina] 

DNA with an "exceptional" preservation La Braña-Arintero site was discovered by chance in 2006 and excavated by Julio Manuel Vidal Encinas, archeologist of the Council of Castilla y León. The cave, located in a cold mountainous area with a steady temperature and 1,500 meters below the sea level, contributed to the "exceptional" preservation of the DNA from two individuals found inside, and they were called La Braña 1 and La Braña 2. According to Iñigo Olalde, lead author of the study, "the intention of the team is to try to recover the genome of the individual called La Braña 2, which is worse preserved, in order to keep obtaining information about the genetic characteristics of these early Europeans." Source: Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) [January 26, 2014]

Read more at: http://archaeologynewsnetwork.blogspot.it/2014/01/spanish-hunter-gatherer-had-blue-eyes.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+TheArchaeologyNewsNetwork+(The+Archaeology+News+Network)#.UubaP4vX__Q
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PINTADERA

Pintadera dal villaggio S'Urbale (Teti), Sardegna, periodo del bronzo (foto: Sardegna Cultura).

Pintadere della Cultura Cucuteni (5500 a.C.) i costruttori delle più grandi città all'epoca.

Pintadera

da Wikipedia:

La pintadera (pl. pintadere) è un reperto archeologico in ceramica o terracotta di forma circolare, caratterizzata da un disegno geometrico usato come stampo o timbro per decorare il corpo, il pane o i tessuti.
È tipica di diverse culture preistoriche, come gli aborigeni Guanci nelle isole Canarie, della civiltà nuragica in Sardegna, della cultura dei vasi a bocca quadrata nell'Italia settentrionale e delle protopalafitte di Bad Buchau. Presentano delle affinità con le brotlaibidole dei balcani.
Il marchio del Banco di Sardegna riprende l'immagine stilizzata di una pintadera nuragica.

Enciclopedie on line:

pintadera In paletnologia, nome di stampi di argilla con disegni di vario tipo. Si trovano nell’ambito di culture neolitiche, specie dei Balcani, ma anche in età successive.    

____________

Da: L'Enciclopedia Treccani d'Arte Antica:

di E. Castaldi

PINTADERA. - Termine ripreso dalla letteratura etnologica e in uso negli studi di preistoria, per indicare una classe di stampi in terracotta di piccole dimensioni e di forme geometriche recanti da un lato una presa, generalmente forata, e dall'altro, motivi di vario genere incisi su superficie piana destinati ad essere riprodotti mediante colore sull'epidermide; tale la loro funzione presso gli antichi abitatori del Messico, come riferito nel 1519 da cronisti spagnoli (donde il nome). Fondata, e non in contrasto con l'uso della decorazione corporale, l'opinione che vuole questi strumenti usati per pratiche magico-profilattiche; essi poterono essere utilizzati per la stampigliatura di tessuti, di superfici vascolari o, genericamente, quali sigilli, mentre è da escludere l'interpretazione che vede nellepintaderas dei manici di spazzole.

La riproduzione dei motivi decorativi è ottenuta premendo il timbro spalmato di materia colorante sulla superficie da decorare, avendo cura di escludere la presenza di colore dalle zone incise che hanno solo funzione negativa. 

L'impiego delle pintaderas, già riscontrato in varie circoscritte zone delle aree euro-asiatica, afro-atlantica, americana ed asiatico-orientale durante periodi pre-e protostorici, sopravvive presso talune popolazioni primitive dell'America.

Derivate con probabilità da più antichi sigilli orientali in pietra in uso sin dagli inizî del IV millennio a. C., si diffusero da oriente a occidente a partire dalla metà del III millennio a. C. I primi ritrovamenti si ebbero dai tell di Gözlü Küle (Tarso) e di Hissarlik (Troia, a partire dalla seconda città); e la diffusione, come risulta dal repertorio decorativo e tipologico, avvenne almeno lungo due vie principali: meridionale l'una, settentrionale l'altra. La documentazione più cospicua è quella data dall'area euro-asiatica (Anatolia, Balcani, Egeo, bacino danubiano, Italia con diffusioni marginali in Russia e nelle isole britanniche). Le pintaderas si presentano, in sezione, sotto forma triangolare, trapezoidale, circolare e, nel tipo nord-occidentale, spprattutto troncoconica. La base varia dal rettangolo allo pseudo-rettangolo, al cerchio, all'ellisse. La decorazione presenta motivi geometrico-lineari e consiste in raggi, croci delimitanti spazi riempiti da triangoli, cerchielli, punti variamente disposti. Rari i motivi curvilinei: un solo esemplare, dalla Caverna dell'Erba (Puglia), ha forma peculiare e motivi spiraliformi. Le forme cilindriche, poco frequenti, si rinvengono, a partire da tempi protostorici, solo nel continente americano che pur presenta, riguardo alla tipologia e alla decorazione, caratteri che lo legano al centro genetico dell'Asia Minore. Pseudo-pintaderas vengono chiamati oggetti analoghi a quelli descritti ma appiattiti da entrambi i lati perché privi di appendice prensile. Particolarmente curati nella fattura (alcuni esemplari presentano anche una verniciatura), si presume avessero valore contabile o fossero una rappresentazione estremamente stilizzata dell'idolo femminile.

Bibl.: A. Issel, Scavi recenti nella caverna delle Arene Candide in Liguria, inBullettino di Paletnologia Italiana, XII, 1886; J. Déchelette, Manuel d'Archéologie, I, Parigi 1924; C. F. A. Schaeffer, Stratigraphie comparée et chronologie de l'Asie Occidentale, Londra 1948; P. Laviosa Zambotti, Le più antiche culture agricole europee, Milano 1947; id., Origini e diffusione della civiltà, Milano 1947; id., I Balcani e l'Italia nella preistoria, in Origines, Como 1954; C. W. Blegen, J. L. Caskey, M. Rawson, J. Sperling, Troy, voll. I-II, Princeton 1950-51; V. G. Childe, The Danube in Prehistory, Oxford 1950; id., Prehistoric Migrations in Europe, Oslo 1950; id., L'Orient préhistorique, Parigi 1953; L. Bernabò Brea, Gli scavi nella Caverna delle Arene Candide, Parte I, vol. II, Bordighea 1956; O. Cornaggia Castiglioni, Origini e diffusioni delle pintaderas preistoriche euro-asiatiche, in Rivista di Scienze preistoriche, XI, fasc. 1-4, 1956.

(E. Castaldi)

Copia della pintadera rinvenuta presso il Nuraghe Santu Antine

Enciclopedia Italiana :

di Raffaele Corso

PINTADERA. - Stampo o sigillo di pietra, di terracotta, di legno, di corno di cervo o d'altra materia con un disegno inciso o intagliato, che serva per stamparlo ripetute volte sull'epidermide del corpo. Caratteristiche delle antiche popolazioni delle Isole Canarie, le pintaderas vennero trovate anche altrove (suggelli preistorici del Derbyshire).
Il termine è adoperato, per estensione, a indicare gli stampi che s'impiegano dal popolo per adornare con disegni e altri lavori la faccia superiore del pane, prima di infarinarlo, del burro, del formaggio e di altre cose.
In Italia se ne trovano per il formaggio (Abruzzo), per il burro (Alpi), per il pane (Calabria). In quest'ultima regione sono notevoli i duplici suggelli di legno, che col nome di muccasa i pastori costruiscono e adornano di segni e di figure speciali ad uso delle famiglie, le quali li adoperano per bollare il pane. I muccasa, come gli altri stampi, hanno carattere di marche di proprietà.



Qualcuno si stupirà, nel leggere che la pintadera nasce nel Neolitico, ma in Sardegna è usata anche molto più tardi, nel periodo del Bronzo (è stata trovata nei 'villaggi nuragici'). Io non mi stupisco tanto di questo, quanto del fatto che alcuni strologatori vi leggano calendari per misurare il tempo. Credo siano gli stessi che raccontano dei coccodrilli albini  e ciechi nelle fogne di New York.

Che via prese l'Agricoltura. E quando.

Ci si è chiesto spesso quando e per che via l'Agricoltura riuscì ad entrare in Europa. Un modello terrestre potrebbe ipotizzare  un passaggio lungo le coste dell'Egeo, che toccasse Tracia e Macedonia, per poi progredire verso sud in Tessaglia e Peloponneso. Ma questo modello è invece messo in dubbio, ora, dalle nuove date venute alla luce per la Grotta di Franchthi. Nella  prima metà del VII millennio a.C. sarebbero stati coltivati cereali - incluse specie di nuova introduzione - nel sud della Grecia. E ciò sarebbe avvenuto prima che nella Grecia settentrionale  e vari secoli prima che si coltivasse in Bulgaria.Questo suggerisce una trasmissione differente da quella terrestre: presuppone una connessione per via marina, passando da isola ad isola.Si tratta di risultati che mettono a fuoco l'importanza determinante di alcuni siti chiave - quali ad esempio Franchthi - nel formulare un quadro più veritiero riguardo alla transizione Neolitica europea...
ecco il  Link dell'articolo scientifico.
December 05, 2013

Early 7th millennium BC Initial Neolithic in Franchthi Cave

Antiquity Volume: 87 Number: 338 Page: 1001–1015

Early seventh-millennium AMS dates from domestic seeds in the Initial Neolithic at Franchthi Cave (Argolid, Greece) 

Catherine Perlès, Anita Quiles and Hélène Valladas

When, and by what route, did farming first reach Europe? A terrestrial model might envisage a gradual advance around the northern fringes of the Aegean, reaching Thrace and Macedonia before continuing southwards to Thessaly and the Peloponnese. New dates from Franchthi Cave in southern Greece, reported here, cast doubt on such a model, indicating that cereal cultivation, involving newly introduced crop species, began during the first half of the seventh millennium BC. This is earlier than in northern Greece and several centuries earlier than in Bulgaria, and suggests that farming spread to south-eastern Europe by a number of different routes, including potentially a maritime, island-hopping connection across the Aegean Sea. The results also illustrate the continuing importance of key sites such as Franchthi to our understanding of the European Neolithic transition, and the additional insights that can emerge from the application of new dating projects to these sites.

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Effetto della prima agricoltura sull'umanità

Early agriculture had dramatic effects on 

humans

The introduction of agriculture in Europe was followed by regional population crashes despite trends of demographical growth, reports research published in Nature Communications this week. Sean Downey, assistant professor in the University of Maryland's Department of Anthropology, was co-author of the paper. The work suggests that these sharp population decreases weren't due to changing climatic conditions, and therefore the authors propose internal causes. The research represents a major revision to our understanding of how the introduction of agricultural technology impacted humans.

Map of Central and North Western Europe. Points indicate archaeological site locations and colours delineate the sub-regions used to estimate demographic patterns [Credit: Nature Communications/doi:10.1038/ncomms3486]

Stephen Shennan, professor of theoretical archaeology at the Institute of Archaeology, University College London, received grant funding from the European Research Council to study early agriculture and its impact on populations across Europe. His multidisciplinary team of researchers includes co-author Downey, and Mark Thomas, Research Department of Genetics, Evolution and Environment, University College London, who designed the statistical analysis necessary to produce the findings.

Agriculture was introduced in the Aegean (modern day Turkey) around 8,500 years ago and steadily spread across Europe, reaching France around 7,800 years ago, and Britain, Ireland and northern Europe approximately 6,000 years ago. In all instances, the introduction of agriculture meant a drastic change in food production and consumption patterns, which led to a population boom. Utilizing radiocarbon dating, and an innovative new method for improving the accuracy of this data, the study's authors examined how population levels changed over time across Europe during the late Mesolithic, ("Middle Stone age") and Early Neolithic ("New Stone age").

The research team discovered that, in all of the 12 different European regions studied, from the South of France to Scotland and Denmark, drastic population fluctuations can be observed. In fact, they note that in some cases population declines were as significant as 30-60 percent from the highest levels achieved after the introduction of agriculture. These dramatic changes in population are of similar scale to the decrease estimated for the much later "Black Death".

The authors found that those fluctuations cannot be associated with climatic factors; however, the exact reasons for this population decline remains unknown.

"It's striking that the development of agriculture – one of humanity's major evolutionary steps – failed to buffer against widespread social collapse during this early period of rapid population growth in Europe," explains Downey. "At this point in the research we can only speculate at the direct causes, but the study demonstrates that agriculture-based societies in the past were vulnerable to population collapse on a broad scale." Downey continues by explaining the study's finding: "There were no correlations between the collapse of regional populations and known climate shifts. It wasn't the climate, so we think it must have been the long-term impact new agricultural technologies had on local environments in reducing resources. The stress this caused among farmers was likely exacerbated by other well-known consequences of living in higher-density populations: increased incidence of social conflict and of disease."

Source: University of Maryland [October 01, 2013]

Scavi un buco, trovi un resto archeologico

Neolithic and Canaanite site found in Judean foothills

Archaeological excavations which were conducted by the Israel Antiquities Authority in the Judean foothills moshav (cooperative village) of Eshta’ol, before laying a sewer line, have unearthed evidence that the area where the moshav houses sprawl started attracting agricultural entrepreneurs as far back as 9,000 years ago.

The excavation of an early Canaanite home [Credit: Israel Antiquities Authority]

According to Benjamin Storchen, the excavation director on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority, “the ancient findings we unveiled at the site indicate that there was a flourishing agricultural settlement in this place, and it lasted for as long as 4,000 years.”

The archaeological artifacts discovered in the excavation site indicate that the first settlers arrived here about 9,000 years ago. This period is called by archaeologists the Pre-Ceramic Neolithic period, which includes the earliest evidence of organized agriculture.

The site continued to flourish, and reached the peak of its development in the early Canaanite period, about 5000 years ago. This period is characterized by the consolidation of large rural communities, which were dispersed all across the country. The economy of these villages relied on field crops, on orchards and on livestock farming, which continue to characterize in today’s typical Mediterranean agriculture.

This period is credited with some technological innovations in agriculture which upgraded man’s ability to process extensive areas of crops more efficiently.

It appears that the Canaanite site being excavated at the moshav Eshta’ol was part of a large settlement bloc, which came to an end for reasons that are not sufficiently clear some 4,600 years ago.

Stortz’n explains that “these findings indicate a broad and well-developed settlement in the area of the Judean foothills, near the spot where two local rivers, the Kislon and the Ishwa, meet.”

He claims that “these two riverbeds, which today are dry, were alive with streaming water in ancient times, which provided the necessities of life for the local community and allow them to develop thriving agricultural systems alongside an economy based on hunting. The evidence to that are flint warheads, discovered in the same excavation.

These early farmers developed a rich culture, which was reflected, among other things, in the plan of the Canaanite residence exposed at the site, right next to one of the moshav homes. There’s also an abundance of findings: pottery and stone tools, flint tools, including those used to harvest wheat and for housework, and arrowheads used for hunting animals and as weapons, as well as beads and bone artifacts.

Source: The Jewish Press [June 30, 2013]