page_title: Archaeology of Israel
section_title: Qesem cave
hierarchical_section_title: Archaeology of Israel / Notable sites / Qesem cave
caption_attribution_description: English: Various shaped shards and loom weight from archaeological sites in Israel
context_page_description: The archaeology of Israel is the study of the archaeology of the present-day Israel, stretching from prehistory through three millennia of documented history. The ancient Land of Israel was a geographical bridge between the political and cultural centers of Mesopotamia and Egypt. Despite the importance of the country to three major religions, serious archaeological research only began in the 15th century. The first major work on the antiquities of Israel was Adriaan Reland's Palestina ex monumentis veteribus, published in 1709. Edward Robinson, an American theologian who visited the country in 1838, published the first topographical studies. Lady Hester Stanhope performed the first modern excavation at Ashkelon in 1815. A Frenchman, Louis Felicien de Saucy, embarked on early "modern" excavations in 1850.
  In discussing the state of archaeology in Israel in his time, David Ussishkin commented in the 1980s that the designation "Israeli archeology" no longer represents a single uniform methodological approach; rather, its scope covers numerous different archaeological schools, disciplines, concepts, and methods currently in existence in Israel.
context_section_description: In Qesem cave, 400,000 years old teeth very similar to modern human teeth were found.
caption: Potsherds and loom-weight found at archaeological sites in Israel
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