Tel Ubeidiya some 3 km south of Lake Tiberias, in the Jordan Rift Valley

Jordan Rift Valley

The Jordan Rift Valley is an elongated depression located in modern-day Israel, Jordan and the Palestinian territories. This geographic region includes the Jordan River, Jordan Valley, Hula Valley, Lake Tiberias and the Dead Sea, the lowest land elevation on Earth...

, Israel

Israel

The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...

, is an archaeological site of the Pleistocene

Pleistocene

The Pleistocene is the epoch from 2,588,000 to 11,700 years BP that spans the world's recent period of repeated glaciations. The name pleistocene is derived from the Greek and ....

, ca. 1.5 million years ago, preserving traces of the earliest migration of Homo erectus

Homo erectus

Homo erectus is an extinct species of hominid that lived from the end of the Pliocene epoch to the later Pleistocene, about . The species originated in Africa and spread as far as India, China and Java. There is still disagreement on the subject of the classification, ancestry, and progeny of H...

out of Africa. The site yielded hand axe

Hand axe

A hand axe is a bifacial Stone tool typical of the lower and middle Palaeolithic , and is the longest-used tool of human history.-Distribution:...

s of the Acheulean

Acheulean

Acheulean is the name given to an archaeological industry of stone tool manufacture associated with early humans during the Lower Palaeolithic era across Africa and much of West Asia, South Asia and Europe. Acheulean tools are typically found with Homo erectus remains...

 type.

The site was discovered in 1959 and excavated between 1960 and 1974, mainly under by Ofer Bar-Yosef

Ofer Bar-Yosef

Ofer Bar-Yosef is an Israeli archaeologist whose main field of study has been the Palaeolithic period.He was Professor of Prehistoric Archaeology at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, the institution where he originally studied archaeology at undergraduate and post-graduate levels in the 1960s...

 and Naama Goren-Inbar.

Location

Tel Ubeidiya is located between the village Menahemia and Kibbutz Beit Zera

Beit Zera

Beit Zera is a kibbutz in northern Israel. Located on the southern shore of the Sea of Galilee, it falls under the jurisdiction of Emek HaYarden Regional Council. In 2006 it had a population of 697....

 , one kilometer northwest of the kibbutz Beit Zera

Beit Zera

Beit Zera is a kibbutz in northern Israel. Located on the southern shore of the Sea of Galilee, it falls under the jurisdiction of Emek HaYarden Regional Council. In 2006 it had a population of 697....

. Prehistoric remains were found northwest of the Tel.

Site's history

The prehistoric site was discovered in May 1959 near the Tel, south of the Yavniel stream, by a member of Kibbutz Afikim who was preparing the ground for agriculture. Excavations at the site began in 1960, led by Moses Stekelis, assisted by zoologist Georg Haas

Georg Haas

George Haas a German medical doctor was born in Nuremberg, Germany. Haas performed the first human hemodialysis treatment. Haas studied medicine at the Universities of Munich and Freiburg...

, geologists Leo Picard

Leo Picard

Leo Picard, also known as Yehudah Leo Picard , was an Israeli geologist and an expert in the field of hydrology.-Biography:Picard was born in Germany in 1900, and studied at universities in Freiberg and Berlin, in Germany, and in Paris and London, and taught at the University of Florence,...

 and Nachman Shulman and several archaeology students, including Ofer Bar-Joseph and Naama Goren-Inbar. After Stekelis' death in 1967, Bar-Joseph and Goren-Inbar conducted the excavations.

Findings

Prehistoric remains starting from about 1.5 million years 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 remains found outside Africa, and more than 10,000 ancient stone tools.

The site also features rock surfaces in which the Prehistoric man lived during the Pleistocene

Pleistocene

The Pleistocene is the epoch from 2,588,000 to 11,700 years BP that spans the world's recent period of repeated glaciations. The name pleistocene is derived from the Greek and ....

 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 which Homo erectus

Homo erectus

Homo erectus is an extinct species of hominid that lived from the end of the Pliocene epoch to the later Pleistocene, about . The species originated in Africa and spread as far as India, China and Java. There is still disagreement on the subject of the classification, ancestry, and progeny of H...

 lived after his exodus from Africa

Africa

Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...

. The finds discovered at the site validate this theory.

On the mound once stood a walled city which controlled the crossing crossroads between the Golan heights and the port of Acre

Acre

The acre is a unit of area in a number of different systems, including the imperial and U.S. customary systems. The most commonly used acres today are the international acre and, in the United States, the survey acre. The most common use of the acre is to measure tracts of land.The acre is related...

.