A joint study by Tel Aviv University and Jerusalem’s Hebrew University examined the charcoal remains of olive and fig trees at a central Jordan Valley site, which appear to be the oldest known evidence of domesticated orchards. Sue Surkes describes the study, and the story it tells about prehistoric life in the valley:

The charcoal remnants were collected by Professor Yosef Garfinkel, . . . who directs the excavations at Tel Tsaf. “Tel Tsaf was a large prehistoric village in the central Jordan Valley, south of Beit Shean, inhabited between 7,200 and 6,700 years ago,” Garfinkel explained.

“Large houses with courtyards were discovered at the site, each with several granaries for storing crops. Storage capacities were up to twenty-times greater than any single family’s calorie consumption, so clearly these were caches for storing great wealth. The wealth of the village was manifested in the production of elaborate pottery, painted with remarkable skill. In addition, we found articles brought from afar: pottery of the Ubaid culture from Mesopotamia, obsidian from Anatolia, a copper awl from the Caucasus, and more,” he said.

[Dafna Langgut of Tel Aviv University] said that, in addition to the evidence of early fruit-tree cultivation, they had also discovered some of the earliest examples of stamps, suggesting the beginnings of administrative procedures.

While it is commendable that administrators of several universities finally called upon police to crack down on violent and disruptive anti-Israel protests, the actions they have taken may be insufficient. At Columbia, demonstrators reestablished their encampment on the main quad after it had been cleared by the police, and the university seems reluctant to use force again. The school also decided to hold classes remotely until the end of the semester. Such moves, whatever their merits, do nothing to fix the factors that allowed campuses to become hotbeds of pro-Hamas activism in the first place. The editors of National Review examine how things go to this point:

Since the 10/7 massacre, Columbia’s Jewish students have been forced to endure routine calls for their execution. It shouldn’t have taken the slaughter, rape, and brutalization of Israeli Jews to expose chants like “Globalize the intifada” and “Death to the Zionist state” as calls for violence, but the university refused to intervene on behalf of its besieged students. When an Israeli student was beaten with a stick outside Columbia’s library, it occasioned little soul-searching from faculty. Indeed, it served only as the impetus to establish an “Anti-Semitism Task Force,” which subsequently expressed “serious concerns” about the university’s commitment to enforcing its codes of conduct against anti-Semitic violators.

But little was done. Indeed, as late as last month the school served as host to speakers who praised the 10/7 attacks and even “hijacking airplanes” as “important tactics that the Palestinian resistance have engaged in.”

The school’s lackadaisical approach created a permission structure to menace and harass Jewish students, and that’s what happened. . . . Now is the time finally to do something about this kind of harassment and associated acts of trespass and disorder. Yale did the right thing when police cleared out an encampment [on Monday]. But Columbia remains a daily reminder of what happens when freaks and haters are allowed to impose their will on campus.