Ubeidiya

Tel Ubeidiya

תל עובדיה
Tel Ubeidiya
Location	Israel
Region	Jordan Valley, Jordan Rift Valley
History
Periods	Pleistocene
Site notes
Archaeologists	Moshe Stekelis, Georg Haas (paleontologist), Ofer Bar-Yosef, Naama Goren-Inbar; geologists Leo Picard and Nachman Shulman

'Ubeidiya (`Ubaydiyya; Hebrew: עובידיה‎; Arabic: العبيدية‎‎), some 3 km south of Lake Tiberias, in the Jordan Rift Valley, Israel, is an archaeological site of the Pleistocene, ca. 1.5 million years ago, preserving traces of the earliest migration of Homo erectus out of Africa. The site yielded hand axes of the Acheulean type.

The site was discovered in 1959 and excavated between 1960 and 1974, mainly by Ofer Bar-Yosef and Naama Goren-Inbar.

Location

'Ubeidiya is located between the village Menahemia and Kibbutz Beit Zera, one kilometer northwest of the kibbutz Beit Zera. Prehistoric remains were found northwest of an archaeological mound (tell) known as Tell 'Ubeidiya.

Site's history

The prehistoric site was discovered in May 1959 near the tell, south of the Yavniel stream, by a member of Kibbutz Afikim who was preparing the ground for agriculture. 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

A reconstruction of Homo erectus (reconstruction shown in Westfälisches Landesmuseum, Herne, Germany, in a 2006 exhibition)

Prehistoric remains starting from about 1.7 million years 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.

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.

The tell

On the nearby mound once stood a walled city which controlled the crossroads of the Jordan Valley and the road linking the Golan Heights to the port of Acre. Ruins of an Arab village abandoned in 1948 are still visible on the tell.

References

• Radiometric Dating of the Ubeidiya Formation, Jordan Valley, Israel Nature 242, 186 - 187 (16 March 1973)[1]
• Evidence for earlier date of 'Ubeidiya, Israel, hominid site Nature 299, 344 - 347 (23 September 1982) [2]