Newly discovered Yarmukian and Wadi Rabah sites in the southern Jordan valley and the desert fringes of Samaria during the 7th and 6th millennia BC: Preliminary report

This study presents data on six previously unknown Late Neolithic/Early Chalcolithic sites in the western Jordan Valley and the desert fringes of Samaria, discovered mostly during the ongoing Manasseh Hill Country Survey. The accumulated data represents a near-total void of Yarmukian occurrences and an absence of Jericho IX sites in the surveyed area. In contrast to this 'void' during the early parts of the Pottery Neolithic period, a marked change in site density within the study area was found for the Late Neolithic/Early Chalcolithic period (Wadi Rabah/Jericho VIII culture), from which fi ve sites were found. These sites are now appended to the known sites of the Late Neolithic/Early Chalcolithic in the Southern Levant, helping to fi ll some of the gaps in our knowledge of the area during the 7th and 6th millennia cal. BC.