Neolithic Well Discovered in Jezreel Valley, Israel

This is a pretty cool find with a great surprise....

While being one of the oldest wells discovered in the world and dug into limestone to a depth of 8 meters / 24 feet , the real treat for us 21st century humans is the "treasure trove" of artifacts found at the bottom of it. The treasures include two human skeletons estimated to be 8500 years old!

So the first thing I thought was amazing was that (apparently) there is water trapped in the limestone because the water table can permeate through it enough so that you can dig a well into it - I would never have thought or known that... those amazingly smart human ancestors we had.

The other thing is that when the humans either fell into the well or were thrown in, the water was thus tainted and unusable, so the residents in the area then started to use the well as a garbage pit and began throwing their tools and debris into it.. along with some animals that somehow ended up at the bottom... which gives us a picture of their life.

It's a pretty neat find and all thanks to a road widening project!

Ancient Well Discovered - one of the oldest found so far...

and

another story with images of skeleton skulls!

Coolness.

Wells were major points of reference as landmarks and commemorative migrations in ancient times.

Wonder if this well is one of them?

Great find! Something like this is an archaeologists dream! A well filled with a strata of human activity from 6,500 BC at the time and place of the assumed beginnings of some of the first agriculture. Cool stuff

S&F

Ah yes a good well. I help to escavate one in Cyprus - lots of sheep and goat bones, pottery sherds and at the bottom a body too. Seems to be a command human need to hide bodies....but that one was Bronze age only

reply to post by brettrix

This also made me think of an old artesian well that i have in my Connecticut home - it was about 20 ft deep and dried up 15 years ago - and then i started filling it in.,

i imagine the archaeologists who go thru my well in 6,000 years will be pretty bored with the find -and i hope they watch out for the nails from the old deck and the glass from the old windows...

No bodies in my well!