Area F

Fragmentary wall remains were uncovered in the alluvial earth below an upper accumulation of modern material. Two of the walls (W603, W604; Fig. 2) appear to form the corner of a poorly constructed structure that contained a number of stones in secondary use, including an early basalt mortar––possibly dating to the Neolithic or Chalcolithic period––and a well-cut rectangular basalt building stone, possibly dating to no earlier than the Byzantine period (Fig. 3). This structure extended below the present-day road. Half a meter further south was an additional intentionally placed row of stones (length 1.40 m). The stones were placed on sterile alluvium that accumulated on bedrock, which was attained c. 2.5 m below the present-day surface.

 

Very few potsherds were recovered from Area F, most were small, worn body sherds datable to the Byzantine or Early Islamic periods; noteworthy is a seventh or eighth century CE lamp fragment. The ceramic finds do not present sufficient chronological evidence for dating this structure.

 

Area G

Two disturbed parallel rows of basalt boulders with a fill of small stones between them, oriented southeast–northwest, were uncovered over a length of c. 4.5 m (Fig. 4). The boulders had an average size (length 0.6–0.7 m; height c. 0.4 m). The stone alignment was cut in the east by the original drainage channel that runs along the western edge of the road. As in Area F, an extremely small amount of worn potsherds was discovered that does not provide ample evidence for dating this construction. It is assumed that these stone rows were associated with agricultural activity rather than being part of an independently standing structure. Below the boulders was sterile alluvium, which was found to descend 2.5 m to bedrock in an adjacent probe with no archaeological remains.

 

Area H (Fig. 5):

A probe (5 × 5 m) that was initially excavated manually and completed by mechanical equipment, revealed sterile alluvium from the opening surface down to bedrock, 3.00 m below. A second probe, 25 m to the northeast, consisted of poorly preserved remains of a paved road. The remains were badly disturbed by their close proximity to surface, as well as by the aforementioned drainage channel. The road, which may be assumed to have served the local inhabitants of the area in the nineteenth–early twentieth centuries CE, was composed of intermittently horizontally laid, nearly flat stones with a white, plaster-like binding material on the alluvial earth. Fragments of this make-up were traced over a course of c. 20 m, at which point it apparently turned to the southeast and disappeared below the existing road.

 

The potsherds in this area were very few as well, although they were not as worn as those found in Areas F and G, and were datable to the Byzantine, Mamluk and Ottoman periods.