Archaeologists Discover High Priest's Bell?

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Archaeologists have discovered a rare gold bell during an excavation in the City of David National Park in Jerusalem.


Archaeologists have discovered a rare gold bell with a small loop at its end. The finding was made during an archaeological excavation in the City of David National Park (near the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem)...



The directors of the excavation... archaeologists Eli Shukron and Professor Ronny Reich of Haifa University, said after the finding, “The bell looked as if it was sewn on the garment worn by a man of high authority in Jerusalem at the end of the Second Temple period.

“The bell was exposed in the city’s main drainage channel of that period, between the layers of dirt that had been piled on the floor of the channel,” they continued. “This drainage channel was built and hewn west to the Western Wall of the Temple Mount and drained the rainfall in the different parts of the city, through the City of David and the Shiloah Pool to the Kidron valley.”

The excavation area, above the drain, is located in the main street of Jerusalem which rose from the Shiloah Pool in the City of David. In this street an interchange was built through which people entered the Temple Mount. The remains of this interchange are what is known today as Robinson’s Arch. Archaeologists believe that the eminent man walked the streets of Jerusalem in the area of Robinson’s Arch and lost the golden bell which fell off his outfit into the drain beneath the street.

...The high priests who served in the Holy Temple in Jerusalem used to hang golden bells on the edges of their coats. The book of Exodus (Shemot), for example, contains a description of the coat of Aaron the high priest in which it is said that coat contains, “bells of gold....”

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Ossuary Belonging to a Daughter of the Caiaphas Family of High Priests was Discovered

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Three years ago the Israel Antiquities Authority Unit for the Prevention of Antiquities Robbery acquired a decorated ossuary bearing an engraved inscription. The ossuary was discovered by antiquities robbers who plundered an ancient Jewish tomb of the Second Temple period. During the course of the investigation it was determined that the ossuary came from a burial cave in the area of the Valley of ’Elah, in the Judean Shephelah.



To check the authenticity of the artifact and the significance of the engraved inscription, the Israel Antiquities Authority turned to Dr. Boaz Zissu of the Department of the Land of Israel Studies and Archaeology of Bar Ilan University and Professor Yuval Goren of the Department of Archaeology and Ancient Near Eastern Civilizations of the Tel Aviv University.

The two scientists published the results of their research, which summarize the importance of the find and confirm its genuineness. The study appears in the Israel Exploration Journal (Volume 61) published by the Israel Exploration Society.

Ossuaries are small stone chests that Jews used for secondary burial of bones; they were quite common in tombs in Israel from the late first century BCE until the beginning of the second century CE. The front of the ossuary that was found is decorated with a stylized floral motif above which is a long Aramaic inscription engraved in Jewish script:

‘Miriam Daughter of Yeshua Son of Caiaphas, Priests [of] Ma'aziah from Beth ’Imri’
(or, an alternative reading:

‘Miriam Daughter of Yeshua Son of Caiaphas, Priest of Ma'aziah from Beth ’Imri’)

In the conclusion of their study Dr. Boaz Zissu and Professor Yuval Goren write, “the prime importance of the inscription lies in the reference to the ancestry of the deceased – Miriam daughter of Yeshua – to the Caiaphas family, indicating the connection to the family of the Ma'aziah course of priests of Beth ’Imri”. Caiaphas is the name of Yeshua’s father, and Miriam‘s grandfather. From the wording of the inscription we learn that he belonged to a famous family of priests that was active in the first century CE. One family member, the high priest Yehosef Bar Caiaphas, is especially famous for his involvement in the trial and crucifixion of Jesus.

Ma'aziah /Ma'aziahu is the last of the twenty four priestly courses that served in the Temple in Jerusalem. The list of courses, which was formulated during King David’s reign, appears in the Bible in I Chronicles (I Chronicles 24:18). The signatories to the pledge in the days of Nehemiah include among others, “Maʽaziah, Bilgai, Shem'aiah; these are the priests” (Nehemiah 10: 9). This is the first reference to the Maʽaziah course in an epigraphic find from the Second Temple period. For the first time we learn from an inscription that the Caiaphas family was related to the Ma'aziah course.
The names of other courses, such as Abijah, Eliashib, Bilgah, Delaiah, Hakkoz, Shecaniah, Hezir, Jehoiarib, Jakim (Jakin) and Jeshebeab, are known from historical and epigraphic texts from the Second Temple period, including inscriptions discovered in tombs.

The ending “from Beth ’Imri” can be interpreted two ways:

The first possibility is that Beth ’Imri is the name of a priestly family – the sons of ’Immer (Ezra 2: 36-37; Nehemiah 7:39-42) whose descendents include members of the Maʽaziah course.

The second possibility is the place of origin of the deceased or of her entire family.The name of the ancient settlement was probably preserved in the name Beit ’Ummar, a village in the northern Hebron Hills. In that village and in nearby Khirbet Kufin, remains of a Jewish settlement were identified from the Second Temple period and the time of the Bar Kokhba Revolt.

In view of the inscription on the ossuary it is worth examining the linguistic relationship between the names Caiaphas – a prominent family that seems to have lived in Beth ’Imri/ Beit ’Ummar – and Khirbet Kufin, which perhaps preserves the name of the Caiaphas family.

Since the ossuary in question was not found in a controlled archaeological excavation and because of its special scientific importance, it was subjected to microscopic examinations using an environmental scanning electron microscope/energy dispersive spectrometer (ESEM/EDS), the purpose of which was to evaluate its authenticity.The patina covering the sides was checked, with emphasis on the patina covering the inscription. The examinations determined that the inscription is genuine and ancient.

The Israel Antiquities Authority is distressed by the fact that this important find, which was plundered from its original provenance, was removed from its archeological context, thus it will never be possible to know the full story of the burial cave. Sadly, the robbers’ desire of monetary gain has erased entire pages of the country’s cultural history.

A 1,500 Year Old Public Building Dating to the Byzantine Period in Akko

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In an archaeological excavation the Israel Antiquities Authority conducted c. 100 m west of Tel Akko – next to the Azrieli Shopping Mall compound under construction there – a 1,500 year old public building was discovered that may have been used as a church. The salvage excavation was carried out there as a result of work that had not been coordinated with the IAA and which caused damage to ancient remains located in a declared antiquities site.



According to Nurit Feig, director of the excavation on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority, "Until now, the city was known from Christian sources which mention its bishop who took part in formulating the new religion. Now, the first tangible evidence is emerging in the field. This is an important discovery for the study of Akko because until now no remains dating to the Byzantine period have been found, save those of a residential quarter situated near the sea”. A large ashlar-built public edifice was uncovered in the IAA excavation. The size of the building, the impressive construction, as well as the finds – an abundance of roof tiles, parts of marble ornamentations, the pottery and coins – all point to a public structure (possibly a church) that served the Bishop of Akko’s city in the Byzantine period. Terra cotta pipes survived below the wall levels and mosaic pavements adorned the floor in one of its rooms. The building’s inhabitants had a readily available supply of water from a well that was situated in one of the courtyards of the building.

The early Christian sources mention the bishops of Akko and Caesarea who participated in major international conferences and meetings that dealt with formulating religious doctrine, thus attesting to the centrality of Akko for the Christian religion in this period. In addition, we also have evidence of an anonymous pilgrim from the city of Piacenza in Italy, regarding the richness and splendor of the city in the year 570 CE, in which he mentions the beautiful churches within its precincts.

The paucity of Byzantine remains that have been found so far can be attributed to the destruction caused by those who came thereafter. In addition, earlier structures that date to the Hellenistic period were exposed beneath the foundations of the Byzantine public building. Their contents were rich and diverse and included imported pottery vessels from the Mediterranean basin, among them amphorae from the Isle of Rhodes, as indicated by the handles that bear the governors’ names.

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Excavation of the ancient site of Tell Belata, in the West Bank city of Nablus

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A team of international archaeologists have recommenced the excavation of the ancient site of Tell Belata, in the West Bank city of Nablus.


"Tell Balata is identified as a biblical place in fact, Shekhem or Sikkim, however it's pronounced, but that same name occurs also in external sources. And the most important source is the Amarna archive tablets, clay tablets, found in Egypt, and they date to the fourteenth century BC. And especially from those sources we know quite a bit about the king of this small kingdom, with the capital in Sikkim or Shakmu, as it's called there, who was trying to rebel against the Egyptian overlord," said Gerrit Van Der Jooit of Leiden University, the Netherlands.


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The city of Shekhem, positioned in a pass between the mountains of Gerizim and Eibal and controlling the Askar Plains to the east, was an important regional center more than 3,500 years ago. As the existing remains show, it lay within fortifications of massive stones, was entered through monumental gates and centered on a temple with walls five yards (meters) thick.

The king of Shekhem, Labaya, is mentioned in the cuneiform tablets of the Pharaonic archive found at Tel al-Amarna in Egypt, which are dated to the 14th century B.C. The king had rebelled against Egyptian domination, and soldiers were dispatched north to subdue him. They failed.

The city also appears often in the biblical narrative. The patriarch Abraham, for example, was passing near Shekhem when God promised to give the land of Canaan to his descendants in the Book of Genesis. Later, Abraham’s grandson Jacob was camped outside the walls when a local Canaanite prince raped his daughter, Dinah. Jacob’s sons sacked the city in vengeance. The body of Jacob’s son Joseph was brought from Egypt hundreds of years later by the fleeing Israelites and buried at Shekhem.

Two millennia ago, the Romans abandoned the original site and built a new city to the west, calling it Flavius Neapolis. The Greek name Neapolis, or “new city,’’ later became enshrined in Arabic as Nablus. In Hebrew, the city is still called Shekhem.

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3,000-year-old altar uncovered at Philistine site suggests cultural links to Jews

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Head of the archeological dig on Tel Tzafit Prof. Aren Maeir says the find indicates that the two peoples thought of as bitter enemies may have been closer than we think.


A stone altar from the 9th century BCE was found in an archeological dig on Tel Tzafit, a site identified with the biblical Philistine city of Gat. The altar is reminiscent of Jewish altars from the same period and sheds light on the cultural links between the two peoples, who fought each other for centuries.



The altar is approximately one meter tall, half a meter wide and half a meter long. It was found by a team of diggers led by Prof. Aren Maeir of the Land of Israel and Archaeology studies at Bar-Ilan University. The most outstanding features of the altar are a pair of horns on its front and a cornice in the middle. Its form is reminiscent of the descriptions of the Jewish altars in the scriptures, with the most noticeable difference being that the altar in the Temple was described as having four horns, while the Gat altar has only two....

Maeir: “The altar a small, but an impressive and special window into the Philistine and Israelite cultures of the time in general, and their rituals in particular. It’s not every day we find items from the biblical times so closely related to items described in the biblical text.”

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Volume of modern humans infiltrating Europe = demise of the Neanderthals

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New research sheds light on why, after 300,000 years of domination, European Neanderthals abruptly disappeared. Researchers from the University of Cambridge have discovered that modern humans coming from Africa swarmed the region, arriving with over ten times the population as the Neanderthal inhabitants.

The reasons for the relatively sudden disappearance of the European Neanderthal populations across the continent around 40,000 years ago has for long remained one of the great mysteries of human evolution. After 300 millennia of living, and evidently flourishing, in the cold, sub–glacial environments of central and western Europe, they were rapidly replaced over all areas of the continent by new, anatomically and genetically 'modern' (i.e. Homo sapiens) populations who had originated and evolved in the vastly different tropical environments of Africa.

The most plausible answer to this long-debated question has now been published today, 29 July, in the journal Science by two researchers from the Department of Archaeology at Cambridge – Professor Sir Paul Mellars, Professor Emeritus of Prehistory and Human Evolution, and Jennifer French, a second-year PhD student.

By conducting a detailed statistical analysis of the archaeological evidence from the classic 'Perigord' region of southwestern France, which contains the largest concentration of Neanderthal and early modern human sites in Europe, they have found clear evidence that the earliest modern human populations penetrated the region in at least ten times larger numbers than those of the local Neanderthal populations already established in the same regions. This is reflected in a sharp increase in the total number of occupied sites, much higher densities of occupation residues (i.e. stone tools and animal food remains) in the sites, and bigger areas of occupation in the sites, revealing the formation of much larger and apparently more socially integrated social groupings.

Faced with this dramatic increase in the incoming modern human population, the capacity of the local Neanderthal groups to compete for the same range of living sites, the same range of animal food supplies (principally reindeer, horse, bison and red deer), and the same scarce fuel supplies to tide the groups over the extremely harsh glacial winters, would have been massively undermined. Additionally, almost inevitably, repeated conflicts or confrontations between the two populations would arise for occupation of the most attractive locations and richest food supplies, in which the increased numbers and more highly coordinated activities of the modern human groups would ensure their success over the Neanderthal groups.

The archaeological evidence also strongly suggests that the incoming modern groups possessed superior hunting technologies and equipment (e.g. more effective and long-range hunting spears), and probably more efficient procedures for processing and storing food supplies over the prolonged and exceptionally cold glacial winters. They also appear to have had more wide-ranging social contacts with adjacent human groups to allow for trade and exchange of essential food supplies in times of food scarcity.

Whether the incoming modern human groups also possessed more highly developed brains and associated mental capacities than the Neanderthals remains at present a matter of intense debate. But the sudden appearance of a wide range of complex and sophisticated art forms (including cave paintings), the large-scale production of elaborate decorative items (such as perforated stone and ivory beads, and imported sea shells), and clearly 'symbolic' systems of markings on bone and ivory tools – all entirely lacking among the preceding Neanderthals – strongly point to more elaborate systems of social communications among the modern groups, probably accompanied by more advanced and complex forms of language.

All of these new and more complex behavioural patterns can be shown to have developed first among the ancestral African Homo sapiens populations, at least 20,0000 to 30,000 years before their dispersal from Africa, and progressive colonisation (and replacement of earlier populations) across all regions of Europe and Asia from around 60,000 years onwards.

If, as the latest genetic evidence strongly suggests, the African Homo sapiens and European Neanderthal populations had been evolving separately for at least half a million years, then the emergence of some significant contrasts in the mental capacities of the two lineages would not be a particularly surprising development, in evolutionary terms.

Professor Sir Paul Mellars, Professor Emeritus of Prehistory and Human Evolution at the Department of Archaeology, said: "In any event, it was clearly this range of new technological and behavioural innovations which allowed the modern human populations to invade and survive in much larger population numbers than those of the preceding Neanderthals across the whole of the European continent. Faced with this kind of competition, the Neanderthals seem to have retreated initially into more marginal and less attractive regions of the continent and eventually – within a space of at most a few thousand years – for their populations to have declined to extinction – perhaps accelerated further by sudden climatic deterioration across the continent around 40,000 years ago."

Whatever the precise cultural, behavioural and intellectual contrasts between the Neanderthals and intrusive modern human populations, this new study published in Science demonstrates for the first time the massive numerical supremacy of the earliest modern human populations in western Europe, compared with those of the preceding Neanderthals, and thereby largely resolves one of the most controversial and long-running debates over the rapid decline and extinction of the enigmatic Neanderthal populations.

Archaeologists at Gath Exploring Ancient Philistines

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At the remains of an ancient metropolis in southern Israel, archaeologists are piecing together the history of a people remembered chiefly as the bad guys of the Hebrew Bible.

The city of Gath is helping scholars paint a more nuanced portrait of the Philistines, who appear in the biblical story as the perennial enemies of the Israelites.

Close to three millennia ago, Gath was on the frontier between the Philistines, who occupied the Mediterranean coastal plain, and the Israelites, who controlled the inland hills. The city's most famous resident, according to the Book of Samuel, was Goliath — the giant warrior improbably felled by the young shepherd David and his sling.

The Philistines "are the ultimate other, almost, in the biblical story," said Aren Maeir of Bar-Ilan University, the archaeologist in charge of the excavation.

The Philistines arrived by sea from the area of modern-day Greece around 1200 B.C. They went on to rule major ports at Ashkelon and Ashdod, now cities in Israel, and at Gaza, now part of the Palestinian territory known as the Gaza Strip.

At Gath, they settled on a site that had been inhabited since prehistoric times. Digs like this one have shown that though they adopted aspects of local culture, they did not forget their roots. Even five centuries after their arrival, for example, they were still worshipping gods with Greek names.

Archaeologists have found that the Philistine diet leaned heavily on grass pea lentils, an Aegean staple. Ancient bones discarded at the site show that they also ate pigs and dogs, unlike the neighboring Israelites, who deemed those animals unclean — restrictions that still exist in Jewish dietary law.

Diggers at Gath have also uncovered traces of a destruction of the city in the 9th century B.C., including a ditch and embankment built around the city by a besieging army — still visible as a dark line running across the surrounding hills.

The razing of Gath at that time appears to have been the work of the Aramean king Hazael in 830 B.C., an incident mentioned in the Book of Kings.

In 604 B.C., Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon invaded and put the Philistines' cities to the sword. There is no remnant of them after that.

The hero Samson, who married a Philistine woman, skirmished with them repeatedly before being betrayed and taken, blinded and bound, to their temple at Gaza. There, the story goes, he broke free and shattered two support pillars, bringing the temple down and killing everyone inside, including himself.

One intriguing find at Gath is the remains of a large structure, possibly a temple, with two pillars. Maeir has suggested that this might have been a known design element in Philistine temple architecture when it was written into the Samson story.

Diggers at Gath have also found shards preserving names similar to Goliath — an Indo-European name, not a Semitic one of the kind that would have been used by the local Canaanites or Israelites. These finds show the Philistines indeed used such names and suggest that this detail, too, might be drawn from an accurate picture of their society.

First discovery of an ancient stone Shabbat boundary in Hebrew.

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An ancient rock inscription of the word “Shabbat” was uncovered near Lake Kinneret this week – the first and only discovery of a stone Shabbat boundary in Hebrew.

The etching in the Lower Galilee community of Timrat appears to date from the Roman or Byzantine period.



“This is the first time we’ve found a Shabbat boundary inscription in Hebrew,” Mordechai Aviam, head of the Institute for Galilean Archeology at Kinneret College, said. “The letters are so clear that there is no doubt that the word is ‘Shabbat.’”

Aviam said Jews living in the area in the Roman or Byzantine era (1st-7th centuries CE) likely used the stone to denote bounds within which Jews could travel on Shabbat. The Lower Galilee of Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages had a Jewish majority – many of the Talmudic sages bore toponyms indicative of Galilee communities.

The engraving uncovered in Timrat is the first and only Shabbat boundary marker yet discovered in Hebrew – a similar inscription was found in the vicinity of the ancient Western Galilee village of Usha, but its text was written in Greek.

Are these ruins of biblical City of David?

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Archaeologists in Israel have found remains which may be the biblical City of King David, the first evidence that the ancient Jewish empire actually existed.

The bible refers to a powerful 10th century B.C. Kingdom of David, Israel's second king, stretching from Egypt to the Euphrates, but little evidence of its existence has ever been found.


Now, an archaeological discovery at Khirbet Qeiyafa, in Elah Valley, 30 km from Jerusalem, appears to show signs of a Jewish settlement.
Professor Yosef Garfinkel, of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, said that evidence found at the site included a single pottery fragment with an inscription believed to be an early form of Hebrew and olive pits dated as 3,000 years old.

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Khirbet Qeiyafa is a forgotten Biblical site. This is most surprising in view of its massive fortifications of megalithic stones which still stand to a height of 2-3 m, and its strategic geopolitical location.

Historical Identification?

The site of Khirbet Qeiyafa has never been excavated. So far it has largely been neglected by archaeologists and biblical scholars and no historical identification has been suggested for it.

In the past we suggested an identification with the biblical city of Azekah, but the dating of the Iron Age settlement to the early 10th century BC clearly disproves our first hypothesis.

In the 2008 seasons we uncovered at the site two gates, one in the east, facing Jerusalem and one in the western side of the site. Khirbet Qeiyafa is the only site in the Kingdoms of Judah and Israel with two gates. This unique feature provides a clear indication of the site's identity as biblical Sha`arayim, a place name that means "two gates" in Hebrew. Sha`arayim is mentioned three times in the Bible: Jos 15, 36, 1 Sam 17:52 and 1 Ch 4:31-32). It is located near the Elah valley, associated with King David twice, and not mentioned in conjunction with any other later First Temple period tradition. This accords with the archaeological and radiometric data that indicate a single-phase settlement in the early 10th century BCE at Khirbet Qeiyafa.

For a detailed article on the site identification see: Yosef Garfinkel and Saar Ganor,
Khirbet Qeiyafa: Sha`arayim. Journal of Hebrew Scriptures - Volume 8: Article 22 (2008).

Human-Like Walking Began Nearly 4 Million Years Ago

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Scientists at the University of Liverpool have found that ancient footprints in Laetoli, Tanzania, show that human-like features of the feet and gait existed almost two million years earlier than previously thought.

Many earlier studies have suggested that the characteristics of the human foot, such as the ability to push off the ground with the big toe, and a fully upright bipedal gait, emerged in early Homo, approximately 1.9 million years-ago.

Liverpool researchers, however, in collaboration with scientists at the University of Manchester and Bournemouth University, have now shown that footprints of a human ancestor dating back 3.7 million years ago, show features of the foot with more similarities to the gait of modern humans than with the type of bipedal walking used by chimpanzees, orangutans and gorillas.

The footprint site of Laetoli contains the earliest known trail made by human ancestors and includes 11 individual prints in good condition. Previous studies have been primarily based on single prints and have therefore been liable to misinterpreting artificial features, such as erosion and other environmental factors, as reflecting genuine features of the footprint. This has resulted in many years of debate over the exact characteristics of gait in early human ancestors.

The team used a new statistical technique, based on methods employed in functional brain imaging, to obtain a three-dimensional average of the 11 intact prints in the Laetoli trail. This was then compared to data from studies of footprint formation and under-foot pressures generated from walking in modern humans and other living great apes. Computer simulation was used to predict the footprints that would have been formed by different types of gaits in the likely printmaker, a species called Australopithecus afarensis.

Professor Robin Crompton, from the University of Liverpool's Institute of Ageing and Chronic Disease, said: "It was previously thought that Australopithecus afarensis walked in a crouched posture, and on the side of the foot, pushing off the ground with the middle part of the foot, as today's great apes do.

"We found, however, that the Laetoli prints represented a type of bipedal walking that was fully upright and driven by the front of the foot, particularly the big toe, much like humans today, and quite different to bipedal walking of chimpanzees and other apes.

"Quite remarkably, we found that some healthy humans produce footprints that are more like those of other apes than the Laetoli prints. The foot function represented by the prints is therefore most likely to be similar to patterns seen in modern-humans. This is important because the development of the features of human foot function helped our ancestors to expand further out of Africa.

"Our work demonstrates that many of these features evolved nearly four million years ago in a species that most consider to be partially tree-dwelling. These findings show support for a previous study at Liverpool that showed upright bipedal walking originally evolved in a tree-living ancestor of living great apes and humans. Australopithecus afarensis, however, was not modern in body proportions of the limbs and torso.

"The characteristic long-legged, short body form of the modern human allows us to walk and run great distances, even when carrying heavy loads. Australopithecus afarensis had the reverse physical build, short legs and a long body, which makes it probable that it could only walk or run effectively over short distances. We now need to determine when our ancestors first became able to walk or run over the very long distances that enabled humans to colonise the world."

Dr Bill Sellers, from the University of Manchester's Faculty of Life Sciences, said: "The shape of the human foot is probably one of the most obvious differences between us and our nearest living relatives, the great apes. The difference in foot function is thought to be linked to the fact that humans spend all of their time on the ground, but there has been a lot of debate as to when in the fossil record these changes occurred. Our work shows that there is considerably more functional overlap than previously expected.

"The Laetoli footprint trail is a snapshot of how early human ancestors used their feet 3.7 million years ago. By using a new technique for averaging footprints, foot pressure information from modern great apes, and computer simulation of walking in the proposed Laetoli printmaker, we can see that the evidence points to surprisingly modern foot function very early on in the human lineage."

Genetic research confirms that non-Africans are part Neanderthal

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Some of the human X chromosome originates from Neanderthals and is found exclusively in people outside Africa, according to an international team of researchers led by Damian Labuda of the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Montreal and the CHU Sainte-Justine Research Center. The research was published in the July issue of Molecular Biology and Evolution.

"This confirms recent findings suggesting that the two populations interbred," says Dr. Labuda. His team places the timing of such intimate contacts and/or family ties early on, probably at the crossroads of the Middle East.

Neanderthals, whose ancestors left Africa about 400,000 to 800,000 years ago, evolved in what is now mainly France, Spain, Germany and Russia, and are thought to have lived until about 30,000 years ago. Meanwhile, early modern humans left Africa about 80,000 to 50,000 years ago. The question on everyone's mind has always been whether the physically stronger Neanderthals, who possessed the gene for language and may have played the flute, were a separate species or could have interbred with modern humans. The answer is yes, the two lived in close association.

"In addition, because our methods were totally independent of Neanderthal material, we can also conclude that previous results were not influenced by contaminating artifacts," adds Dr. Labuda.

Dr. Labuda and his team almost a decade ago had identified a piece of DNA (called a haplotype) in the human X chromosome that seemed different and whose origins they questioned. When the Neanderthal genome was sequenced in 2010, they quickly compared 6000 chromosomes from all parts of the world to the Neanderthal haplotype. The Neanderthal sequence was present in peoples across all continents, except for sub-Saharan Africa, and including Australia.

"There is little doubt that this haplotype is present because of mating with our ancestors and Neanderthals. This is a very nice result, and further analysis may help determine more details," says Dr. Nick Patterson, of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard University, a major researcher in human ancestry who was not involved in this study.

"Dr. Labuda and his colleagues were the first to identify a genetic variation in non-Africans that was likely to have come from an archaic population. This was done entirely without the Neanderthal genome sequence, but in light of the Neanderthal sequence, it is now clear that they were absolutely right!" adds Dr. David Reich, a Harvard Medical School geneticist, one of the principal researchers in the Neanderthal genome project.

So, speculates Dr. Labuda, did these exchanges contribute to our success across the world? "Variability is very important for long-term survival of a species," says Dr. Labuda. "Every addition to the genome can be enriching." An interesting match, indeed.

House dating back to the period of the Kingdom of Israel

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Exceptional detective-archaeological work at the first season of archaeological digs at Tel Shikmona, on the southern edge of Israel’s city of Haifa, has uncovered the remains of a house dating back to the period of the Kingdom of Israel. The site was excavated about 40 years ago and due to neglect and layers of earth and garbage that piled up over the decades, the historical remains were hidden and little was known about what lay below. Upon re-exposing the structure, archaeologists from the University of Haifa were amazed to find that it had remained well preserved and is in fact the best-preserved “Four-Room House” dating back to that period known today. “We had seen the structure in the old photographs, and were sorry that such a rarely preserved finding had disappeared due to neglect. We were not even sure that we would be able to find it again. It was practically a miracle that we managed to locate and uncover it and that it is still so well preserved,” said Dr. Shay Bar and Dr. Michael Eisenberg of the Zinman Institute of Archaeology at the University of Haifa, who headed the excavation team.

Tel Shikmona, on the southern coast of Haifa, Israel, is located in the Shikmona Nature Reserve and National Park, managed by the Israel Nature and Parks Authority. It was excavated in the 1970s by the late Yosef Algavish on behalf of the Municipality of Haifa, when remains of settlement dating from the late Bronze Age (16th century BCE) to the Muslim occupation of the 7th century CE were found. Over the past decades, however, the archaeological findings at Tel Shikmona have been damaged, construction waste has piled up on the site, and off-road vehicles have ploughed over it. University of Haifa researchers began renewed excavations at the site about 6 months ago, sponsored by the Hecht Foundation in partnership with the Municipality of Haifa, as part of a project intended to transform the area into a public archaeological park. The first season is now culminating and with it a number of fascinating findings.

The old photographs of the 1970s excavations show a house dating back to the 8th-9th centuries BCE, which is the period of the Kingdom of Israel. The structure’s design is known as a “four-room house”, which was the most common design for houses in that era. It is characterized by the functional division of the structure into four living spaces: three positioned vertically and the fourth horizontally. The other four-room houses exposed to date have been found in relatively bad condition.

Detective work based on the photographs led the researchers to estimate the location of the house - and luck was on their side as they located the structure and also found it highly preserved. According to Dr. Bar and Dr. Eisenberg, this finding presents a rare opportunity to study and become familiar with everyday life in the days of the Kingdom of Israel, and after a process of conservation they hope to include the structure in the public archaeological park.

An additional rare finding exposed during the excavations belongs to the Israelite period (11th-8th centuries BCE - the settlement and Kingdom of Israel): a personal seal showing an inscription in Hebrew or Phoenician. The researchers hope that deciphering this inscription will give the answer to whether the settlement of that time was in fact Israelite or Phoenician.

Other findings from that period give evidence of expansive trade with Middle Eastern neighbors. These include relics imported from Cyprus and the coast of Lebanon, which arrived in fine, delicate vessels of high-quality ceramic. Also exposed were remains of purple-colored pitcher shards. The researchers explain that these are likely to be rare cases of preserved dye, which is reinforced by the fact that hundreds of the purple dye-producing mollusc shells were also found at the site.

Earlier in the season, a long section of the eastern side of the tell was exposed, revealing remains of terraced Byzantine structures (4th-7th centuries CE) that were built on the slope. Inside the houses, a number of destroyed mosaic floors and storage rooms were uncovered, while dozens of vessels there survived the ruins and were found whole. Many coins, ornaments, pendants, weapons and glass vessels were also found there, providing evidence of the wealth of the inhabitants. Beneath these Byzantine remains, the archaeologists exposed a structure from the Persian era (4th century BCE) in which an oven, clay loom weights and storage pitchers were found, indicating Persian settlement of the area. At another section of the excavations on the tell, the remains of three stages of settlement from the 11th-8th centuries BCE were found. It seems that at the beginning of that era, settlement in the region was relatively sparse but increased over time, becoming a prosperous, fortified city by the first century BCE.

In the course of these excavations, residents of the neighborhoods near Shikmona took an active part in the digs, and the excavating team arranged a special tour and hands-on experience at the site for a group of special needs children.

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