The Intermediate Bronze Age (IBA) in the Negev, Forty Years Later

Back in 1963, as part of my Ph.D. research on the Intermediate Bronze Age in the Negev, I had the luck and the initiative to be the first to excavate a settlement site from this period in the Negev. (When talking about the IBA in the Negev, we really mean the hill-country of the central Negev, not the Beer-Sheva valley, nor the Halutza sand-dunes or the southernmost Negev.) The detailed archaeological report — a major part of my 1967 dissertation — remains unpublished to date, although generations of Hebrew-reading students and scholars have benefited from it. Choosing Har-Yeruham for this endeavour proved to be the right thing to do, even in light of the extensive surveys and excavations that have been carried out later on in the Negev.