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The photo on this page shows the skull of an elephant
unearthed at the Bnot Yaakov Bridge site on the
bank of the River Jordan. A large fossilized elephant's
molar is another piece of evidence proving that
elephants roamed the area. Not far from the skull
there came to light a trimmed tree-branch, a heavy
block of dressed basalt used as an anvil, and implements
used apparently in the elephant hunt. Scientific
tests of the finds, the tree-branch in particular,
revealed that the site was active some 780,000 years
ago.
The elephant remains were found at a spot which
at that period of time had been the shoreline of
Lake Huleh. The branch, it is thought, was used
by the hunters to turn over the great skull of their
prey so as to extract (and eat) the contents. Both
skull and branch were preserved by sinking under
the lakeshore mud, where no oxygen penetrated.
The Bnot Yaakov site has yielded hundreds of basalt
handtools, some sharpened to a point,  others
(choppers) cut to a wide, flat edge. Examples of
basalt-made tools are very rare in Israel and it
seems most likely that migrants from the African
continent brought the technique with them.
Another Golan site displayed in the Museum through
its finds is Braikhat Ram in the North Golan. The
collection of flint tools from this site are all
dark-brown in color from having been buried in an
iron-rich red earth, formed by the wearing down
of basalt-lava from local volcanoes. The tools look
as though they have been baked in an oven. But the
most astounding find from the Braikhat Ram site
is a female figurine carved in porous basalt. Fashioned
some 233,000 years ago (the age of the whole site),
she seems to be nothing less than the earliest carved
figurine found anywhere in the world.
Another prehistoric site in the North Golan was
discovered at Bikat Kneitra, also on the shores
of an ancient freshwater lake. Its treasure is a
diverse collection of wild animal bones - rhinoceros,
wild ox, horse, lion, turtle, red deer, gazelle,
and wolf. The fact that the quantity of bones is
so large and that some of them show the marks of
cutting and chopping or of having been split open
have led archeologists to conclude that this was
where the bodies of animals, killed when they came
to drink, were brought to be prepared for eating.
The site has been dated as 54,000 years old and
several of the bones found there are on display
in the Museum.
All three of these sites were excavated by Prof.
Na'ama Goren-Inbar, the first in 1981. (Elephant
skull photo: G. Larzan) |
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