Tel Yaqush—An Early Bronze Age Village in the Central Jordan Valley, Israel

This article highlights the results of five excavation seasons at Tel Yaqush, Israel, conducted between the 1989 and 2000 on behalf of The Oriental Institute at The University of Chicago. Tel Yaqush was a medium-sized village, inhabited during the entire Early Bronze Age period, from the mid-4th to the mid-3rd millennia b.c.e. The excavations exposed a dense settlement begun in the Early Bronze Age (EB) I, which ended in a severe conflagration. Apparently rebuilt at the beginning of EB II, the village remained a small site and technically non-urban throughout the period. Destroyed at the end of EB II, it was renewed in EB III, coinciding with the arrival of people bearing the Khirbet Kerak Ware ceramic tradition. This preliminary report includes new observations following recent studies of Tel Yaqush finds, including a new sequence of 14C dates from EB I to III (published in detail elsewhere). The excavation results summarized here reveal the unique role Tel Yaqush played during the shift to urbanism, and its contribution to our understanding of Early Bronze Age village society in the central Jordan Valley.