Ubeidiya prehistoric site

Coordinates: 32°41′22″N 35°33′25″E / 32.68944°N 35.55694°E / 32.68944; 35.55694
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
This article is about the prehistoric site. For other sites by this name, see Ubeidiya.
Ubeidiya

Jordan Valley, Jordan Rift Valley
History
PeriodsPleistocene
Site notes
ArchaeologistsMoshe Stekelis, Georg Haas (paleontologist), Ofer Bar-Yosef, Naama Goren-Inbar; geologists Leo Picard and Nachman Shulman
Public accessYes

'Ubeidiya (

bovid
.

The site was discovered in 1959 and was first excavated between 1960 and 1974.

The site is distinct from nearby Tell Ubeidiya.

Etymology

1940s Survey of Palestine map showing the location of the historic village site (today known as Tell Ubeidiya) and the prehistoric site discovered in 1959.

The prehistoric site is named for the historical Arab village of Ubeidiya, which was centered on Tell 'Ubeidiya.

The name Ubeidiya comes from the Arabic word obeid, meaning "little slave", while a connection with the biblical name Obadiah cannot be ruled out.[4] Abeed is the Arabic word for slave.

Location

'Ubeidiya is located between the village Menahemia and Kibbutz Beit Zera, one kilometer northwest of the latter.

The prehistoric remains were found at a site distinct from the archaeological mound (tell) known as Tell 'Ubeidiya, some 400 metres northwest of the tell.

Excavation history

The prehistoric site was discovered in May 1959 near the tell, south of the Yavne'el stream (Wadi Fidjdjas), by a member of Kibbutz Afikim who was levelling the ground for agriculture with a bulldozer.[5] Excavations at the site began in 1960, led by Moshe Stekelis, assisted by zoologist Georg Haas, geologists Leo Picard and Nachman Shulman and several archaeology students, including Ofer Bar-Yosef and Naama Goren-Inbar. After Stekelis' death in 1967, Bar-Yosef and Goren-Inbar conducted the excavations.

Findings

Large horns from a species of extinct bovid (Israel Museum)

Prehistoric remains starting from about 1.7 Mya (million years ago)[6][failed verification], more recently redated biochronologically to 1.5 Mya,[3] were discovered in the excavations, within about 60 layers of soil within which were found human bones and remains of ancient animals. These include some of the oldest remains found outside Africa, and more than 10,000 ancient stone tools[verification needed].

Today, the findings are preserved in the Israel Museum in Jerusalem.[7]

Human skeletal remains

In February 2022, archaeologists from the

palaeoanthropologist, quite categorically declares it to be a H. erectus.[11]

Other hominin skeletal material from Ubeidiya previously studied consists of a

H. erectus. The age of the deposits and the location within the Levantine corridor indirectly suggest it belonging to a H. ergaster hominin.[3]

UB 10749 was similar to the East African

KNM WT 15000 of (Nariocotome III), KNM-ER 736 and KNM-ER 1808 from Koobi Fora and MK3 (IB7594) from Gombore in the Melka Kunture area (Ethiopia).[12]

Habitation remains and environment

The site also features rock surfaces in which the prehistoric man lived during the Pleistocene period. As a result of geologic breakage and foldage activity, the rock surfaces are now inclined at an angle of 70 degrees. It is thought that the area used to feature a pristine lake along which Homo erectus lived after his exodus from Africa. The finds discovered at the site validate this theory.[citation needed]

Archaeologists found bones of animal species that went extinct altogether, such as

sabertooth tigers, mammoths and giant buffalo, as well of species still surviving elsewhere in the world, such as baboons, warthogs, hippopotamuses, giraffes and jaguars.[10]

Nearby Tell 'Ubeidiya

Tell 'Ubeidiya, a nearby archaeological mound

Ruins of the

Palestinian village of Ubeidiya, Tiberias
, depopulated in 1948, are still visible on a nearby tell.

On the mound once[when?] stood a walled city which controlled the crossroads of the Jordan Valley and the road linking the Golan Heights to the port of Acco. Tell Ubeidiya is considered as one of the possible candidates for the Bronze Age city of Yenoam, known from Egyptian sources, but this is a matter of speculation.[13]

A 2012 trial excavation along the western fringes of the tell uncovered remains from the

Early and Late Bronze, Iron, Persian, Roman, Byzantine, Early Islamic, Crusader, Mamluk and Ottoman periods.[14]

References

  1. ISBN 0-8264-1316-1
    . Retrieved 25 July 2021.
  2. ISBN 9781139017831
    .
  3. ^
    PMID 12098209
    . Retrieved 31 July 2021.
  4. ^ Claude Reignier Conder; Earl Horatio Herbert Kitchener Kitchener (1881). The Survey of Western Palestine: Arabic and English Name Lists Collected During the Survey. Committee of the Palestine Exploration Fund. p. 121. from 'Obeid, "a little slave" (but perhaps connected with the Biblical name Obadiah).
  5. ^ Stekelis, M., Prausnitz, M., Perrot, J., Kaplan, J., Department of Antiquities, Dothan, M., . . . Negev, A. (1960). NOTES AND NEWS. Israel Exploration Journal, 10(2), 118-128. Retrieved July 31, 2021, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/27924819
  6. ^ Webb, Steve. The First Boat People 2006. page 8, citing Chernov 1987, Shipman 1992, Ganubia et al 1999.
  7. ^ "Ubeidiya Collections". imj.org.il. Retrieved 2022-07-06.
  8. ^
    PMID 35110601
    .
  9. ^ "1.5 million-year-old bone shines light on ancient human migration". The Independent. 2022-02-02. Retrieved 2022-02-07.
  10. ^
    Times of Israel
    . 2 February 2022. Retrieved 2022-02-07.
  11. ^ a b "Archaeologists Discover Missing Link in Human Evolution, in Israel". Ruth Schuster for Haaretz. 2 February 2022. Retrieved 16 February 2022.
  12. ^ Alon Barash et al. The earliest Pleistocene record of a large-bodied hominin from the Levant supports two out-of-Africa dispersal events // Scientific Reports. Volume 12, Article number: 1721, 02 February 2022
  13. ISBN 9781575061139
    .)
  14. ^ Mokary, Abdalla (31 December 2014). "'Ubeidiya: Final Report". Hadashot Arkheologiyot (HA-ESI). 126. Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA). Retrieved 31 July 2021.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)

32°41′22″N 35°33′25″E / 32.68944°N 35.55694°E / 32.68944; 35.55694

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ubeidiya_prehistoric_site&oldid=1214317117"