  Shown within the West Bank | |
| Location | West Bank |
|---|---|
| Coordinates | 32°01′58″N35°28′32″E / 32.032778°N 35.475556°E /32.032778; 35.475556[dubious –discuss] |
| Type | Tell[dubious –discuss] |
| Part of | Village |
| History | |
| Material | Charcoal, seeds |
| Founded | c. 11,400BP |
| Abandoned | c. 11,200BP |
| Periods | Neolithic (PPNA,PPNB)[dubious –discuss] |
| Site notes | |
| Excavation dates | 1979-2005 |
| Archaeologists | Tamar Noy, Ofer Bar-Yosef, Mordechai E. Kislev, Anat Hartmann |
| Public access | Yes |
Gilgal I (Hebrew:גלגל) is anarchaeological site in theJordan Valley,West Bank, dated to the earlyNeolithic period. The site is located 8 mi (13 km) north of ancientJericho.[1] The features and artifacts unearthed at Gilgal I shed important light on agriculture in theLevant.[2] The by far oldest domesticatedfigs found anywhere in the world were recovered from an incinerated house at the site, and have been described as coming from cultivated, as opposed to wild, fig trees.
Gilgal I was first excavated by Tamar Noy in 1979. Further excavations were conducted by Ofer Bar-Yosef ofHarvard University, together with Mordechai E. Kislev and Anat Hartmann ofBar-Ilan University.[3]
The Early Neolithic village was inhabited for about two centuries before being abandoned some 11,200 years ago.[4]
The archaeologists found caches of selectively propagatedfig seeds,[dubious –discuss] stored together with wildbarley, wildoat, andacorns in quantities too large to be accounted for even byintensive gathering, at strata datable c. 11,000 years ago. The dig also unearthed the remains of thirteen round buildings made of mud and rock.[3]
(Some of the plants tried and then abandoned during the Neolithic period in theAncient Near East, at sites like Gilgal I, were later successfully domesticated in other parts of the world.[5])
At Gilgal, archaeologists found ancient carbonized figs stored in an 11,400-year-old house which appear to be a mutant"parthenocarpic" variety, adopted and cultivated for human consumption.[1] The figs discovered at Gilgal lackembryonic seeds, a mutation that does not survive in nature more than a single generation. This suggests that the fig trees at Gilgal were artificially maintained by planting live branches in the ground, a horticultural technique known asvegetative propagation. Some fig remains recovered from other sites in the Middle East appear to be of the Gilgal variety.[6]
This providesarchaeobotanists with proof that agriculture may have started in the Ancient Near East with people domesticating the fig tree about one thousand years before managing to do the same with wheat, barley, and legumes.[4] This pushes back the date of fig tree domestication by some 5,000 years earlier than thought, and makes figs the oldest domesticated crop we know of.[4]
Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (PPNA) baked clay objects were discovered at Gilgal I, most of them figurines and symbolic artifacts. As some of the earliest ceramic findings in theLevant, they are of interest to archaeologists for their artistic, stylistic, symbolic and technological characteristics.[2]
The Moreshet Foundation Israel (MHF Israel) has been working on developing the Gilgal Education Center in theJordan Valley, a center open to the public that will highlight the importance of this archaeological site.[7][dubious –discuss]
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