Middle Bronze Age IIA Burials at Tel Yosef

Salvage excavations were conducted at the foot of Tel Yosef (Tell esh-Sheikh Hasan; map ref.1883/2183) due to the exposure and partial destruction of ancient burial grounds by heavy machinery while digging a fish pond east of the tell and constructing a road to its west. 1 The burials were all embedded below a 1.5 m deep overburden of sterile alluvial soil.They are part of the extra-mural cemeteries that flanked the mound on at least these two sides during MB IIA.The mound is located at the southern fringes of the Harod Valley, at the foot of the Gilbo'a mountains (Fig. 1).It was surveyed by N. Zori during the 1920s when its summit served as the temporary location of Kibbutz Tel Yosef (Tel Yosef Ha-Yeshana; Zori 1971:14-22; 1977:26-27).Zori collected potsherds that indicate occupation on the tell from the Neolithic to the Islamic period. 2 Excavations 200 m west of the tell exposed an extension of this site, occupied during the Pottery Neolithic period (Covello-Paran, in preparation).This prolonged occupation was probably due to the favorable location of the site, along the main east-west throughway connecting the Jordan Valley and the coast.The economic advantages of the location were augmented by the numerous perennial springs in the immediate vicinity ('En Ayyalot, 'En Yosef, 'En Rehan), the cultivable land in the valley and the nearby wooded Gilbo'a mountains, which provided wood, stone, flora and fauna.The primary objectives of the excavations were to locate burials and to salvage as much data as possible in order to study mortuary practices and establish the chronological range of the cemetery.Unfavorable weather conditions