The Early Pre-Pottery Neolithic B Site of Aḥihud (Western Galilee, Israel)

The recent excavations at the site of Aḥihud uncovered the remains of an Early Pre-Pottery Neolithic B village on the bank of Nahal Ḥilazon (Acre valley, Israel) tributary channel. The site is in an ecotone between the western Galilee hills and the northern coastal plain. The lithic assemblage from the site includes typical PPNB arrowheads (about a third are El-Khiam and Helwan types) as well as hundreds of sickle blades. The fauna include evidence to the hunting of large and small game as well as small predators. The flora from the site shows evidence for an intensive legume crop agriculture. Thousands of legume seeds were concentrated in two silos. The vast majority are broad beans (Vicia faba) that predate the earliest evidence for an established cultivation of legumes in the Southern Levant. Other finds attest to the acquisition of exotic goods such as various green stones and obsidian from the Northern Levant or shells from the Red Sea.