Bronze Age cemetery disovered in Israel

Angela

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If they get busy studying these bones we might get some real answers about the ethnogenesis of the Hebrews, especially since it was in continuous use for about 1500 years.

See:
http://archaeology.org/news/4234-160304-bethlehem-khalet-al-jam-a-cemetery

"ROME, ITALY—A 4,000-year-old cemetery made up of more than 100 tombs has been found near Bethlehem in the West Bank. Now known as Khalet al-Jam’a, the cemetery probably served an undiscovered settlement for more than 1,500 years. Many of its tombs have been destroyed by modern construction or looting, but at least 30 tombs have survived. Many of them are shaft tombs with one or more rock-cut chambers. According to Lorenzo Nigro of Sapienza University of Rome, the settlement was situated near trade routes, and artifacts from the tombs indicate that it had been a wealthy place. “Typical pieces of the burial sets are finely executed carinated bowls, small shouldered jars/bowls with everted rim, one-spouted lamps, huge and well-refined Canaanite jars with two or four handles, as well as bronze daggers and spearheads,” he wrote in the journal Vicino Oriente as reported in Live Science. The settlement may have been “Beth-Lehem,” referred to in ancient texts. The cemetery fell out of use around 650 B.C. “It seems that the town suffered a crisis,” Nigro wrote in Vicino Oriente."
 
100 tombs between 4.2 and 2.65 ka
right through the turmoil and the people movements ot the so-called 'Sea Peoples' 3.2 ka
could be interesting

didn't the Hebrews appear after the 'Sea Peoples' turmoil ?
 
100 tombs between 4.2 and 2.65 ka"
right through the turmoil and the people movements ot the so-called 'Sea Peoples' 3.2 ka
could be interesting

didn't the Hebrews appear after the 'Sea Peoples' turmoil ?

I'm not sure. It depends how you define their emergence.

At any rate, after reading more about the site, the dating of each individual skeleton is going to be very important, because the early tombs are typically Canaanite, but showing contact with both the Aegean (Mycenaeans) and Egypt, as makes sense from everything we know. By the Iron Age, you begin to see "Israelite" practices. How much change will there be in the genetics? How much difference will there be between the early Canaanite skeletons from this initially Canaanite town and skeletons from early unambiguously Israelite towns, if such can be found? Also interesting if we ever get a Hyksos skeleton will be whether it is similar to these people.

Anyway, here is an update and more detail from Ha'aretz.

http://www.haaretz.com/jewish/archaeology/.premium-1.707191

"Canaanite burial practices

The tombs at Khalet al-Jam´a were artificially carved into the soft limestone rock, a burial practice common in the Levant and described in the Bible.
read more: http://www.haaretz.com/jewish/archaeology/.premium-1.707191"

"The earliest tombs in Khalet al-Jam´a date to the Early-Intermediate Bronze Age, and show the community had consisted of farmers/pastoralists. The evidence shows that by the Middle Bronze Age, the town, located in a fertile valley watered by natural springs, had been large."

"The evidence at Khalet al-Jam´a supports the biblical description in Genesis of the practice of maintaining a family tomb enabling generations to be buried together; Hence the frequent biblical expression ‘to lie down, or be buried, with his forefathers’. "

"In one tomb chamber, three bronze daggers, one socketed bronze axe and a bronze toggle pin was found. The longest dagger, measuring 21 cm, is Mycenaean type of the late Bronze Age, triangular in shape with large-headed rivets.

Such daggers were used for slashing. Evidently it had been imported, and this was clearly a warrior's grave, Lorenzo explains.

The same burial contained “Hyksos-like” signet amulets, known as scarabs. The signet scarab beetles were mounted on golden or bronze rings. "

With time there is a change to more Israelite practices..

"Later, during the Iron Age, the burial practice in Khalet al-Jam'a would change, to reflect a new tradition to those typical in Jerusalem.

The difference is visible between the Middle and Late Bronze burials and the Iron Age ones, with areas of the tomb (niches or arcosolia) devoted to host the​ bodies,” said Lorenzo.

The difference was that Iron Age bodies lay alone. Vaults or chambers were cut into the rock for a single body, which was laid on a shelf. In the event of multiple burials, slots large enough to accommodate one body each were carved into the sides of the chamber at right angles to the walls."

The site was abandoned during the Assyrian invasions. The other interesting question is how different were the people who returned from exile after the Babylonian captivity, i.e. did they admix while they were in exile? Or, was the group that admixed composed of the Hebrew ancestors of the Samaritans, as the Israelites always claimed?

khalet-a-jama-3.jpg



The bronze blades found in the warrior grave:

Interesting stuff.
bronze-age-blade.jpg
 
I'm not sure. It depends how you define their emergence.

Anyway, here is an update and more detail from Ha'aretz. By the Iron Age, you begin to see "Israelite" practices. How much change will there be in the genetics? How much difference will there be between the early Canaanite skeletons from this initially Canaanite town and skeletons from early unambiguously Israelite towns, if such can be found? Also interesting if we ever get a Hyksos skeleton will be whether it is similar to these people.


For people who are disattached of all the emotion and comotion of political / Religio Drama of the region and imported world wide, my bet is they are one and the same people and percentage differences will be minor and superficial, and no special race/s involved. Today it will be difficult to determine the original dna readings as much mixture has happened especially with Europeans through immigration into Europe...then to the Americas, who in return have returned back to Israel in its creation in 1948. Retrieving ancient dna from the region all along the once Canaanite lands can help draw a much more authentic picture, but ancient dna readings in the whole Mediterranean region hardly seem to materealize....I wonder why. :unsure:
 
there were certainly people moving around in the southern Levant between 4 and 2.65 ka
the question is whether that will be visible in this particular cemetery
 


For people who are disattached of all the emotion and comotion of political / Religio Drama of the region and imported world wide, my bet is they are one and the same people and percentage differences will be minor and superficial, and no special race/s involved. Today it will be difficult to determine the original dna readings as much mixture has happened especially with Europeans through immigration into Europe...then to the Americas, who in return have returned back to Israel in its creation in 1948. Retrieving ancient dna from the region all along the once Canaanite lands can help draw a much more authentic picture, but ancient dna readings in the whole Mediterranean region hardly seem to materealize....I wonder why. :unsure:

I think lack of funds has something to do with it as far as Italy is concerned. Studies on "Lombard" Italian dna are stalled for that reason, and one on "Celt-Ligurian" dna. To a certain extent it may be lack of interest as well. I've had some limited communication with some of the Italian university based genetics groups, and like the general Italian public they don't have the same kind of interest in what they think of as "anthropological" analysis of ancient Italian dna, other than a lingering interest in the Etruscans. This is much more a northern European interest and fascination.

There is one study of which I'm aware from conference reports which purports to be working on a relatively broad cross-section of ancient autosomal Italian dna, but unfortunately it's not being done by any of the top notch labs so I'm not very hopeful that it will be much good. For one thing, if they're using old bones from museums there's a lot of problems with contamination. Then, you really have to understand the new statistical methods being used, and from what I can see very few teams know what they're doing.
 
I think lack of funds has something to do with it as far as Italy is concerned. Studies on "Lombard" Italian dna are stalled for that reason, and one on "Celt-Ligurian" dna. To a certain extent it may be lack of interest as well. I've had some limited communication with some of the Italian university based genetics groups, and like the general Italian public they don't have the same kind of interest in what they think of as "anthropological" analysis of ancient Italian dna, other than a lingering interest in the Etruscans. This is much more a northern European interest and fascination.

There is one study of which I'm aware from conference reports which purports to be working on a relatively broad cross-section of ancient autosomal Italian dna, but unfortunately it's not being done by any of the top notch labs so I'm not very hopeful that it will be much good. For one thing, if they're using old bones from museums there's a lot of problems with contamination. Then, you really have to understand the new statistical methods being used, and from what I can see very few teams know what they're doing.

As for Canaan/Israel, there definitely were, as Bicicleur alluded to, movements back and forth during that period, from north to south as well as from south to north. I think there might be differences depending on the time period, but the differences might very well be more subtle than those we see between MN Central Europeans and steppe people, for example.
 
For one thing, if they're using old bones from museums there's a lot of problems with contamination. Then, you really have to understand the new statistical methods being used, and from what I can see very few teams know what they're doing.

This is my present understanding, contamination and degenerated dna because of warm / hot climatic conditions. As I mentioned once it seems that ancient dna readings are only possible from the Alps upwards, which is only saying a part of the story.

What also amazes me is that we base EEF's WHG's ANE's on ancient bones that were found in present day Germany, Luxembourg and Siberia. This cannot represent a full picture of ancient migration when there is so much to be deciphered in the Mediterranean region.
 

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