Sha'ar HaGolan

Sha'ar HaGolan is a Neolithic archaeological site near Kibbutz Sha'ar HaGolan in Israel. The type site of the Yarmukian culture, it is notable for the discovery of a significant number of artistic objects, as well as some of the earliest pottery in the Southern Levant. The first Yarmukian settlement was unearthed at Tel Megiddo during the 1930s, but was not identified as a distinct Neolithic culture at the time. At Sha'ar HaGolan, in 1949, professor Moshe Stekelis first identified the Yarmukian culture, a Pottery Neolithic culture that inhabited parts of Israel and Jordan. The site, dated to ca. 6400–6000 BC (calibrated), is located in the central Jordan Valley, on the northern bank of the Yarmouk River. Its size is around 20 hectares, making it one of the largest settlements in the world at that time. Although other Yarmukian sites have been identified since, Sha'ar HaGolan is the largest, probably indicating its role as the Yarmukian center. The site was excavated by two teams from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem: one led by Moshe Stekelis (1949–1952), and the other by Yosef Garfinkel (1989–90, 1996–2004), and later co-directed with Michele A. Miller (1998–2000). While during the earlier excavations no architecture was found, the second expedition uncovered large courtyard houses, ranging between 250 and 700 m2 in area. The courtyard house makes its first appearance at Sha

Archaeological site data from Wikidata (CC0). Summary from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA).