ABSTRACT
Archaeology and anthropology in Israel attract great public and academic interest, since human history in this region spans some 1.5 million years. Being a bridge between three continents, this small land saw many wars, population changes, and rises of nations throughout its long history. Thirty thousand archaeological sites known to and controlled by the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA), and mass development in a very small country, result in about 300 excavations each year. Human remains are found in about 10 per cent of the sites, representing every population that ever lived in Israel. These could be ancient hominids in prehistory; Cana’anites and Israelites in biblical times; inhabitants of the foreign empires controlling Israel, such as the Greeks, Romans, Byzantines and Arabs, and even the crusaders; and of course modern populations from the last millennium.
