Horvat Qarqar South: Report on a Chalcolithic cemetery near Qiryat Gat, Israel

This is a report on a salvage excavation conducted between December 2005 and February 2006 at the Chalcolithic site of Horvat Qarqar South, c. 3 km southeast of Qiryat Gat. The site consists of approximately 60 second burial caves, of which 22 were excavated. We present the structure, contents and organisation of the five best-preserved burial caves, including a comprehensive analysis of the ossuaries and offering vessels associated with them. The ¹⁴C dates suggest that the cemetery was used during the late Ghassulian, at approximately 4,000 BCE cal. It is estimated that hundreds of individuals were buried at the cemetery. Also discussed are the typology of ossuaries and offering vessels, their intra- and intercemetery variability and its implications.