Area A (Fig. 2), the northern of the two excavation areas, yielded building remains belonging to a single stratum. The mechanical removal of the surface soil (thickness 1 m) unearthed two walls (W102, W103; Fig 3) joined at a right-angle to create an eastern corner of a building. The walls were constructed of limestone and basalt fieldstones and were preserved three courses high (0.65 m). The eastern, outer face of the corner was damaged, probably when trial trenches were dug prior to the excavation. The remains of a packed-earth floor with pebble-sized stones (L104) was partly preserved within the corner of the building. The floor and the walls were constructed directly on virgin soil.

Floor 104 yielded only one diagnostic potsherd—a rim of an MB bowl (Fig. 4:1). A rim of an MB storage jar (Fig. 4:4) was retrieved north of the building, at the top of an accumulation of compact light brown clayish soil with decreasing amounts of small stones and pottery (L105), just below the foundation level of W102 (-195.30 m). These two finds point to an MB date for the building. The ceramic finds from the accumulation abutting the building on the south (L101) included fragments of household vessels, such as a cooking bowl rim with a rope decoration (Fig. 4:2), a rim fragment of a holemouth jar (Fig. 4:3), a storage jar rim (Fig. 4:5) and a small button base of a red-slipped juglet (Fig. 4:6); all these suggest that the remains belong to a domestic structure that dates from the MB I.

 

Area B (Fig. 5) yielded scant building remains, which similarly date from the MB I alone. In the northern square (Sq C13) were two parallel, east–west walls (W203, W204; Fig. 6), built of large and medium-sized fieldstones. Of the two, W203 (height c. 0.5 m) was better preserved. Wall 204 (preserved height 0.4 m) was partly missing, but its outline could be discerned; it seems to have been constructed of larger, flatter stones. In the space between the walls (max. width 2 m) lay an occupation level (L205) which covered sterile soil (L207). Occupation Level 205 yielded a large amount of domestic MB I pottery, including the rims of a cooking vessel (Fig. 7:6) and of two storage jar (Fig. 7:11, 12).

A layer similar to Occupation Level 205 was found in the southern square (L201; Sq C15), probably its southern extension. This locus provided the largest amount of pottery, all dating from the MB I and domestic in nature: rims of large open bowls (Fig. 7:3, 4), a rim of a cooking-vessel with a rope decoration (Fig. 7:5), rims belonging to kraters or to holemouth jars (Fig. 7:8, 9) and a rope-decorated jar rim (Fig. 7:10). A fragment of a basalt grinding stone (Fig. 7:13) was also found in this level.

No floors were found in association with Occupation Level 201, but it contained the remains of a collapsed, badly damaged tabun (L202; Fig. 8) made of burnt, dark red mud set on a base of flat stones. The potsherds found among the debris of the tabun included rims belonging to two bowls (Fig. 7:1, 2) and a krater (Fig. 7:7).

 

The excavated remains belong to a previously unknown single-period settlement from the Middle Bronze Age I. The building remains are clearly domestic in nature and may have been part of a small farmstead or a satellite village, which was linked to the main city of Bet She’an during the eighteenth century BCE. This conclusion is corroborated by the similarity that the homogeneous ceramic assemblage from the site bears with both the Bet She’an MB I assemblage (Strata R5–R4; Maeir 2007) and the MB I assemblage from Bet Yerah (Greenberg et al. 2006).