Horvat Galil is an archaeological

Archaeology

Archaeology, or archeology , is the study of human society, primarily through the recovery and analysis of the material culture and environmental data that they have left behind, which includes artifacts, architecture, biofacts and cultural landscapes...

 site in the Upper Galilee

Upper Galilee

The Upper Galilee is a geographical-political term in use since the end of the Second Temple period, originally referring to a mountainous area overlapping the present northern Israel and southern Lebanon, its borders being the Litani river in the north, the Mediterranean Sea in the west, the Beit...

, Israel

Israel

The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...

, 13 kilometres (8.1 mi) from the coast of the Mediterranean.

It was first excavated in 1986 by Professors Avi Gopher

Avi Gopher

Avi Gopher is a Israeli Archaeologist and a Professor at the University of Tel Aviv in Israel. He completed his B.A. there in 1978, M.A. in 1981 and PhD in 1986 and specialises in prehistoric Israel...

 and Israel Hershkovitz and consisted of an upper Byzantine

Byzantine

Byzantine usually refers to the Roman Empire during the Middle Ages.Byzantine may also refer to:* A citizen of the Byzantine Empire, or native Greek during the Middle Ages...

 layer over a more extensive PPNB layer with which the excavations were primarily concerned. 60 square metre were initially exposed and dwelllings of mud bricks and lime plaster

Lime plaster

Lime plaster is type of plaster composed of hydrated lime, sand and water. Lime plaster is similar to Lime mortar, the main difference is the based on use rather than composition. Traditional lime plaster contains also horse hair to reinforce plaster....

 floors were examined. Several burials were found beneath the floors of the dwellings. The lithic

Lithic

Lithic may refer to:*a stone tool*Lithic analysis*Lithic stage*Lithic core *Lithic reduction *Lithic technology *Lithic flake *Lithic fragment...

 assemblage at the site included Helwan, Byblos, Sultanian and even Aswad points and finely denticulated sickle

Sickle

A sickle is a hand-held agricultural tool with a variously curved blade typically used for harvesting grain crops or cutting succulent forage chiefly for feeding livestock . Sickles have also been used as weapons, either in their original form or in various derivations.The diversity of sickles that...

 blades, indicating an early pre-pottery inhabitation that is one the most northern to have been excavated in Israel. Although the site has not been radiocarbon dated

Radiocarbon dating

Radiocarbon dating is a radiometric dating method that uses the naturally occurring radioisotope carbon-14 to estimate the age of carbon-bearing materials up to about 58,000 to 62,000 years. Raw, i.e. uncalibrated, radiocarbon ages are usually reported in radiocarbon years "Before Present" ,...

, sites with similar sets of tools such as Mujahia

Mujahia

Mujahia is an archaeological site in the southern Golan Heights, Israel.It was first excavated by Avi Gopher in 1985 who examined stratigraphy made up of limestone and basalt. Three levels of circular walled dwellings were found using stone basalt construction...

 and burial customs have been dated to the second half of the 8th millennium BC

8th millennium BC

In the 8th millennium BC, agriculture became widely practised in the Fertile Crescent and Anatolia.Pottery became widespread and animal husbandry spread to Africa and Eurasia. World population was approximately 5 million.-Events:*c. 8000 BC—The last glacial period ends.*c...

.

Further Reading

• Gopher, A., Horvat Galil and Nahal Beset I: Two Neolithic Sites in the Upper Galilee . Mitekufat Haeven, Journal or the Israel Prehistoric Society Vol. 22:82-92, 1989.
• Gopher, A., Horvat Galil - An Early PPNB site in the Upper Galilee, Israel. Tel Aviv, Journal of the Institute of Archaeology Tel Aviv University 24 (2):183-222, 1997.