jump to the content
Recherche avancée

Pre-historic Sites: Ubadiyya, Sha'ar Hagolan, Mount Carmel

Les noms des biens figurent dans la langue dans laquelle les Etats parties les ont soumis.

Israël (Europe et Amérique du nord)

Date de soumission : 30/06/2000
Critères:
Catégorie : Mixte
Soumission préparée par :
Delegation Permanente d'Israel aupres de l'UNESCO
Coordonnées
Lat. 32°41' N / Long. 35°37' E
Ref.: 1477

Description

Ubadiyya, Sha'ar Hagolan and Mount Carmel furnish the earliest known sites discovered with remains of the settlement of early man identified in the sites of the Rift Valley and the Carmel Mountain Range.



Ubadiyya

The prehistoric site of Ubadiyya is located on a hill south of Tiberias on the western bank of the Jordan River, named after the nearby historical mound, Tel Ubeidiya.



Systematic excavations at the site uncovered Lower Paleolithic artifacts and bones of extinct mammalian species, renamed the Ubadiyya Formation. Researchers reconstructed the geological history of the Ubadiyya Formation and identified the layers - which contained both animal bones and worked-stone artifacts. An impressive 60 plus levels were located. A detailed geological study indicated that the Ubidiyya Formation represents the depositional history of the Lower Pleistocene in the central Jordan Valley. No human remains were found in situ but it can be assumed that members of the Homo erectus lineage were responsible for making the artifacts. The varied fauna of Lake Ubidiyya's immediate environment provided numerous scavenging opportunities, and the Mediterranean vegetation supplied numerous species of plants from which leaves, fruits, and seeds could be gathered. The archaeological and zoological information from Ubidiyya is for the time being the richest of all early



Lower Paleolithic sites in Eurasia and constitute the best evidence for the "out of Africa" movement of Homo erectus.



Sha'ar HaGolan

Sha'ar HaGolan is located in the central Jordan Valley on the western bank of the Yarmuk River. The site includes remains of a Pottery Neolithic village from the second half of the 6th millennium and a village from the Middle Bronze Age I. During the digging of fish ponds in the early 1940's, members of Kibbutz Sha'ar HaGolan discovered a unique material culture - pottery, flint tools, and abundant clay and stone art objects. Recent excavations exposed residential structures dated to the Middle Bronze Age I. The structures represent an unwalled, single-layered settlement who economy was based on agriculture, pastoralism and hunting. The architecture, pottery and lithic assemblage at this settlement are linked to the material culture of the urbanization period that preceded it. However, it is to be seen as a permanent rural settlement that attests to the radical changes in social structure that occurred after the destruction of the Early Bronze Age cities.



Har HaCarmel

The caves of Har HaCarmel are an important pre-historic site located along the canyon of Nahal Mearot, the loveliest and most completely exposed fossilized rudist reefs in Israel, and these remarkable caves bear witness to the continuum of settlements of early man in a world representing about 200 thousand years in the life of prehistoric man.



These caves were first excavated in the 1920's, which reveal use of the caves by the Acheulian, Muarian and Mousterian cultures, one of the rarest testimonies to the continuum of man's settlement in one location for so long a period.