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  Shown within Israel | |
| Location | Israel |
|---|---|
| Region | Jordan Valley,Jordan Rift Valley |
| Coordinates | 32°41′19″N35°33′43″E / 32.68861°N 35.56194°E /32.68861; 35.56194 |
| History | |
| Periods | Pleistocene |
| Site notes | |
| Archaeologists | Moshe Stekelis,Georg Haas (paleontologist),Ofer Bar-Yosef,Naama Goren-Inbar; geologistsLeo Picard andNachman Shulman |
| Public access | Yes |
Ubeidiya (Levantine Arabic:العبيدية,romanized: ʿUbeydiyye;Hebrew:עובידיה,romanized: Uvediya), some 3 km south of theSea of Galilee, in theJordan Rift Valley,Israel, is anarchaeological site of the earlyPleistocene,[1]c. 1.5 million years ago, preserving traces of one of theearliest migrations ofHomo erectus out of Africa, with (as of 2014) only the site ofDmanisi inGeorgia being older.[2] The site yieldedhand axes of theAcheulean type, but very few human remains.[3] The animal remains include a hippopotamus' femur bone, and an immensely large pair of horns belonging to a species of extinctbovid.
The site was discovered in 1959 and was first excavated between 1960 and 1974.
The site is distinct from nearby Tell Ubeidiya.
The prehistoric site is named forUbeidiya, Tiberias, which was centered on Tell 'Ubeidiya butdepopulated during the 1947–1949 Palestine war.
The name Ubeidiya may be derived from the biblical nameObadiah; it appears on the surface to be aadjectival form of a diminutive ofSouth Levantine Arabicabeed "slave."[4]Abeed is the Arabic word for slave.
Ubeidiya is located between the villageMenahemia and thekibbutzBeit Zera, one kilometer northwest of the latter.
The prehistoric remains were found at a site distinct from the archaeological mound (tell) known as Tell 'Ubeidiya, some 400 metres northwest of the tell.
The prehistoric site was discovered in May 1959 near the tell, south of thewadi Yavne'el/Fijjās, by a member of the kibbutzAfikim who was levelling the ground for agriculture with abulldozer.[5] Excavations at the site began in 1960, led byMoshe Stekelis, assisted by zoologistGeorg Haas, geologistsLeo Picard andNachman Shulman and several archaeology students, includingOfer Bar-Yosef andNaama Goren-Inbar. After Stekelis died in 1967, Bar-Yosef and Goren-Inbar conducted the excavations.
Prehistoric human remains starting from about 1.7 Mya (million years ago)[6][failed verification], more recently redatedbiochronologically to 1.5 Mya,[3] were discovered in the excavations, within about 60 layers of soil within which were found human bones and remains of ancient animals. These include some of the oldest human remains outside Africa and more than 10,000 ancient stone tools[verification needed].
Today, the findings are preserved in theIsrael Museum inJerusalem.[7]
In February 2022, archaeologists from theIsrael Antiquities Authority, led by Professor Ella Been, announced the discovery of a 1.5-million-year-old completehomininvertebra. According to the researchers, the fossilized bone belonging to a juvenile between the ages of 6-12 is the oldest evidence of ancient hominins in theMiddle East. This latest discovery has shed new light on telling the story ofearly human migrations. The size and shape of the lowerlumbar vertebra, dated to theEarly Pleistocene, indicates that it belonged to an individual from a different species than the one represented by the 1.8-million-year-oldDmanisi hominins fromGeorgia. After this discovery,Omry Barzilai assumed that different human species produced the stone tool industries present at Ubeidiya and Dmanisi, respectively.[8][9][10] The Ubeidiya child was an estimated 155 cm tall at death,[8] its predicted adult size being, in the conservative estimation of Prof. Ella Been, of more than 1.8 metres tall.[11] Regarding the species the hominin child belonged to, the authors of the paper published in theScientific Reports journal are adopting there the cautious attitude of declaring it as "comparable to other early Pleistocene large-bodied hominins from Africa", but due to a lack of information about its morphology beyond what can be gleaned from a vertebra, they are declining to identify its species other than it being too large to belong toH. habilis.[8] In an interview with the Israeli newspaperHaaretz, however, Dr. Alon Barash, apalaeoanthropologist, quite categorically declares it to be aH. erectus.[11]
Other hominin skeletal material from Ubeidiya previously studied consists of amolar, a further minor finding, and a highly worn right lateral lowerincisor.[3] The analysis of the more recently discovered incisor identified the hominin species to which it belongs as one of the three extant during the Lower Pleistocene, but could not securely distinguish to which of them: Homo habilis, H. ergaster, or H. erectus. The age of the deposits and the location within theLevantine corridor indirectly suggest it belonging to a H. ergaster hominin.[3]
UB 10749 was similar to the East AfricanKNM WT 15000 of (Nariocotome III), KNM-ER 736 and KNM-ER 1808 fromKoobi Fora and MK3 (IB7594) from Gombore in theMelka Kunture area (Ethiopia).[12]
The site also features rock surfaces in which the prehistoric man lived during thePleistocene period. As a result of geologic breakage and foldage activity, the rock surfaces are now inclined at an angle of 70 degrees. It is thought that the area used to feature a pristine lake along whichHomo erectus lived after his exodus fromAfrica. The finds discovered at the site validate this theory.[citation needed]
Archaeologists found bones of animal species that went extinct altogether, such assabre-toothed cats,mammoths andgiant buffalo, as well of species still surviving elsewhere in the world, such asbaboons,warthogs,hippopotamuses,giraffes andjaguars.[10]
Ruins of thePalestinian village ofUbeidiya, Tiberias.
On the mound once[when?] stood a walled city which controlled the crossroads of the Jordan Valley and the road linking theGolan Heights to the port ofAcco. Tell Ubeidiya is considered as one of the possible candidates for the Bronze Age city ofYenoam, known fromEgyptian sources, but this is a matter of speculation.[13]
A 2012 trial excavation along the western fringes of the tell uncovered remains from theEarly and Late Bronze, Iron, Persian, Roman, Byzantine, Early Islamic, Crusader, Mamluk and Ottoman periods.[14]
from 'Obeid, "a little slave" (but perhaps connected with the Biblical name Obadiah).
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