Pottery. Potsherds of various periods were collected from the alluvium on the west side of the W100 (L101), where they accumulation with earth and water that was swept down from higher up the hill, and from the cleaning of the top of W103 (L103). Although the diagnostic potsherds were few, they included vessels from the Chalcolithic, Iron Age II, Persian, Byzantine and Islamic periods. These included a jar with a low neck and a flaring rim from the Chalcolithic period (Fig. 6:1); an Iron Age II bowl with an everted ledge rim with two ridges below the rim on the exterior (Fig. 6:2); and jars with an outfolded rim from the Persian period (Fig. 6:3, 4). Additional vessels included a Fine Byzantine Ware jug made of brown-orange clay and characterized by a rather narrow and short neck, the upper part of which flares diagonally outward with a down-turned rim (Fig. 6:5), of a type known at sites from the late Byzantine and Early Islamic periods in southern Israel; a flask made of brown clay with a short neck that is swollen near the top (Fig. 6:6), which resembles flasks made of buff clay that were common in the Umayyad period and appeared less frequently in the Abbasid period; a bag-shaped jar with a barrel-shaped body and a molded neck and rim, of a type that is very common at sites in southern Israel from the Byzantine and Early Islamic periods.
 
Flint Items. The flint findswere retrieved without demarcation of excavation squares from the surface between the agricultural terraces (L105) and from the alluvium beside the terrace walls (L101, L104). Most of the assemblage comprises tools and cores, suggesting that the sample is biased toward these items. It nevertheless includes various other debris items (Table 1). The raw materials are a high quality, finely-grained flint and a more coarse and striped flint that were probably obtained from flint outcrops further up the hill. The flint industry at the site is both blade and flake oriented, and the distribution by loci of the tool types, debitage and cores showed no significant differences. The diagnostic items date from the Chalcolithic period. Most of the items are abraded and broken and seem to have originated from a proto-historic site up the hill, yet to be identified.
 
Table 1. Frequency of flint items
Type
N
%
Primary items
12
11.4
Flakes
17
16.2
Blades
1
1.0
Core rejuvenations
1
1.0
Chunks
18
17.0
Chips
1
1.0
Total debitage
50
47.6
Tools
38
36.2
Cores
17
16.2
Total
105
100.0
 
Most of the tools are retouched, denticulated and notched items (Table 2; Figure 7:1, 2). The tools divide equally between flakes and blades, with no clear preference for either industry; most were ad hoc tools. There are eight retouched blades (Fig. 7:3, 4); one bears bifacial retouch and another was fashioned into a point. One of the scrapers is a transverse scraper made on a blade core (Fig. 7:5). One awl was shaped on the side of a broken blade that later broke at both ends (Fig. 7:6). Seventeen complete cores and one broken core were retrieved (Table 3); they comprise both flake cores and cores for the production of blades and bladelets (Fig. 7:7, 8). The most common type of core has a single striking platform and was used for the production of flakes. Most of the cores are made of gray or brown homogeneous raw material.
 
Table 2. Frequency of flint tools
Type
N
%
Scrapers
3
7.9
Awls
2
5.3
Notches
3
7.9
Denticulates
9
23.7
Retouched flakes
10
26.3
Retouched blades
8
21.1
Side scrapers
3
7.8
Total
38
100
 
Table 3. Breakdown of core types
Type
Total
%
Single striking platform
7
41.2
Two unidirectional striking platforms
2
11.8
Two parallel striking platforms
1
5.9
Two orthogonal striking platforms
2
11.8
Amorphous
4
23.5
Fragment
1
5.8
Total
17
100
  
The two agricultural terraces explored in the excavation were apparently part of a farming system employed by the local population to cultivate crops in an environment with rather low rainfall. The terrace walls stemmed the runoff water and ensured that the soil retained by them had sufficient moisture for farming. The small flint assemblage retrieved in the excavation was dispersed throughout the area as the result of alluvial processes occurring down the hillsides and in the wadi. It is clear from the abraded condition of the items that they were swept from their original site of deposition. This suggests that there is site on the nearby slopes that has not been identified in surveys of the region.