Netiv Hagdud
נתיב הגדוד · Netiv Hagedud
Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (9500–9000 BCE; Sultanien)·Sultanian PPNA (Levant)·🇵🇸 West Bank, Jericho Governorate, Lower Jordan Valley, Palestine
About
About Netiv Hagdud
PPNA type-site village (c.9500–9000 BCE) on an alluvial terrace 15 km north of Jericho, excavated by O. Bar-Yosef (Harvard). Oval semi-subterranean pisé houses 4–6 m diameter with stone foundations, storage pits, hafted sickle gloss, wild barley and fig phytoliths, and dense ground stone, demonstrating full sedentary PPNA life contemporaneous with Jericho's tower but without fortifications. Provides basal PPNA archery (El-Khiam points) sequence for the Jordan Valley.
Why it mattersPPNA Sultanian type-site; proves Jordan Valley PPNA dispersal was across alluvial fans, not only springs (Jericho).
Open questions
Mysteries & theories
Mysteries
- 01Why no PPNA fortification unlike Jericho?
Theories
- 01Netiv Hagdud as seasonal camp that became permanent hamlet
Theories are interpretations, not findings. The seal above tells you how much scholarly weight the place carries.
History
How it came to be
- Built
- c. 9500 BCE (PPNA)
- Period
- Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (9500–9000 BCE; Sultanien)
- Culture
- Sultanian PPNA (Levant)
- Builders
- Early sedentary foragers transitioning to cultivation
- Purpose
- Alluvial terrace farming–foraging hamlet
- Abandoned
- c.9000 BCE (PPNB relocation)
- Rediscovered
- 1977 Bar-Yosef test trench; excavated 1982–1987
- Excavation
- Excavated
c.9500 BCE
Oval houses founded
c.9200 BCE
Intensive wild barley harvest deposits
1977
Bar-Yosef identifies Sultanian type assemblage
On the ground
Structures & features
31.9720° N · 35.4180° E · -210 m · 1 mapped feature
Oval house 6
houseSemi-subterranean pisé house with plastered floor and sickle blades
31.9722° N · 35.4183° E
Gallery