An Archaeological Survey at el-Janab Cave, Central Samaria

El-Janab Cave (‘Usarin Cave) is a large karst system located about 11 km south of Shechem (Nablus) in Central Samaria. It comprises a series of large chambers connected by narrow passages that developed as a hypogenic cave in Upper-Cenomanian dolomite. During 2017–2018, we mapped and surveyed the cave, retrieving archaeological finds from various periods, including the Late Chalcolithic, early Bronze Age, Middle Bronze Age, Iron Age I, Iron Age II, Persian, early Hellenistic, Early Roman, Ayyubid and Mamluk periods. It seems that the cave’s geographical and morphological features—its location in an open but settled landscape and its complex structure of passages leading to spacious chambers—attracted distinct human activities in several periods. In some phases, it was used as a refuge in turbulent times. In this paper, we present the archeological assemblages from the cave and discuss their interpretation and association with the history of the area.