Qiryat Ata. New perspectives on a late prehistoric site in the southern Levant

The late prehistoric site of Qiryat Ata in the Zebulon Valley, Israel, is known from a major publication of several seasons of salvage excavations (Golani 2003) as primarily an Early Bronze Age site. This paper presents a reevaluation of data published in that report. It suggests a significantly expanded and altered archaeological profile of the site, especially of its chrono-cultural associations in the Early Bronze Age and a substantially different interpretation of the social organization of the communities represented there. In addition it considers the ancient climate and geomorphology of the site and offers new insights into late prehistoric lifestyles there.