UNEARTHED IN JERUSALEM - Archaeologists Find 7000-year-old Houses

UNEARTHED IN JERUSALEM - Archaeologists Find 7000-year-old Houses

Copper Age Settlement Unearthed in Jerusalem

UNEARTHED IN JERUSALEM - Archaeologists Find 7000-year-old Houses

    JERUSALEM, ISRAEL—A team from the Israeli Antiquities Authority (IAA) has excavated the remains of a 7,000-year-old settlement in a Jerusalem neighborhood. It is the first significant site dating to the Copper Age ever unearthed in the city. Led by IAA archaeologist Ronit Lupo, the team discovered two well-preserved dwellings that retained their floors. “Thousands of years later, the buildings uncovered are of a standard that would not fall short of Jerusalem’s architecture,” Lupo said in an Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs press release. “This discovery represents a highly significant addition to our research of the city and the vicinity.” 

      In addition to the houses, the team unearthed small sickle blades that would have been used for harvesting cereals, and a number of other artifacts, including a carnelian bead. To read in-depth about a dig at another site in Israel, go to "Excavating Tell Kadesh." 

Evidence of 7,000-year-old houses in Jerusalem

      Stone houses and artifacts dating back 7,000 years have been discovered in Jerusalem, demonstrating that the settlement existed even longer than  had been supposed. The houses showed various stages of building, indicating that they had been in use for centuries.

UNEARTHED IN JERUSALEM - Archaeologists Find 7000-year-old Houses

       The discoveries are the oldest known remains of human habitation in Jerusalem. Previous discoveries from Chalcolithic-era Jerusalem had included pottery sherds and bones, but not signs of housing.
It had had been widely assumed that the Jerusalem area had been inhabited for 4,000 or 5,000 years.

       The remains predate previously found evidence of human settlement in the area by up to 2,000 years. Before the latest discovery, it was thought that the area was first settled in the early Bronze Age, from around 3,000–2,800 BCE.

       Ronit Lupo, director of excavations for the IAA, said the discovery, which includes complicated architectural structures and a range of different tools, points to a thriving population in the area.

       “This discovery represents a highly significant addition to our research of the city and the vicinity,” she said.

        “Apart from the pottery, the fascinating flint finds attest to the livelihood of the local population in prehistoric times: Small sickle blades for harvesting cereal crops, chisels and polished axes for building, borers and awls, and even a bead made of carnelian (a gemstone), indicating that jewelry was either made or imported,” Lupo added. “The grinding tools, mortars and pestles, like the basalt bowl, attest to technological skills as well as to the kinds of crafts practiced in the local community.”

UNEARTHED IN JERUSALEM - Archaeologists Find 7000-year-old Houses