The area was first identified as the site of ancient Jericho in modern times by Charles Warren in 1868 CE, on the basis of its proximity to the large spring of Ain es-Sultan (عين سلطان) that had been proposed as the spring of Elisha by Edward Robinson three decades earlier.

By 7000 BCE, agriculture was well established in at least three Near Eastern regions: ancient Palestine, Iran and Anatolia. Although, so far no remains of domestic cereals have been found that can be securely dated before circa 7000-7500 BCE, the advanced state of agriculture at that time presupposes a long developmental arc. Indeed, the very existence of a town such as Jericho gives strong support to this assumption. However this conclusion is still academically debated, and not universally accepted.

The archaeological mound of tel-Jericho, a plateau in the Jordan River valley with an unfailing spring, was occupied by a small settlement or village as early as 9th millennium BCE. This settlement underwent spectacular development around 8000 BCE, when a new Neolithic period town covering about 10 acres was constituted. Its mud-brick houses sat on round or oval stone foundations and had roofs of branches covered with earth.

As the town's wealth grew and powerful neighbours established themselves, the need for protection resulted in the first known permanent stone fortifications. By approximately 7,500 BCE, the settlement, estimated to have had a population of more than 2,000 people, was surrounded by a wide rock-cut ditch and a five-foot thick wall. A great circular stone tower, originally reaching to a heigh of approx. 28 feet (today preserved to a height of approx 13 feet), was built in to this wall. Almost 33 feet in diameter at its base, the tower has an inner stair-way leading to its summit. This structure was built with only simple stone tools and was a tremendous technological achievement at the time.

circa

Early Bronze Age
Early Bronze Age (circa 3300–2000 BCE) occupation at Tell es-Sultan is attested in multiple strata, though architectural remains are less substantial than those of the subsequent Middle Bronze Age. Settlement during Early Bronze I–III included domestic structures and defensive elements consistent with urbanized centers in the southern Levant.

By the end of Early Bronze III (circa 2300–2200 BCE), many southern Levantine urban centers experienced contraction or destruction. At Jericho, occupation appears to have declined during the Early Bronze IV (circa 2300/2200–2000 BCE), corresponding to a regional shift toward less centralized settlement patterns. Evidence includes reduced architectural investment and changes in material culture typical of the EB IV horizon in the Jordan Valley.

Principal excavations for this period were conducted by John Garstang (1930–1936 CE) and later reassessed by Kathleen Kenyon (1952–1958 CE), whose stratigraphic method refined the chronology of the Early Bronze Age levels.

Middle Bronze Age
The Middle Bronze Age (circa 2000–1550 BCE) represents the principal urban florescence of Bronze Age Jericho. Substantial fortifications were constructed during Middle Bronze II (circa 1800–1550 BCE). These included: A stone revetment wall at the base of the mound. An earthen glacis rising above the revetment. A mudbrick wall at the crest of the tell.

This fortification system parallels defensive architecture at contemporary sites in the Levant. Tombs from the Middle Bronze Age have yielded ceramic assemblages, scarabs, and other grave goods indicating participation in regional exchange networks, including contacts with ancient Egypt.

Kenyon identified a major destruction level at the end of Middle Bronze II, which she dated to circa 1550 BCE, correlating it with the broader pattern of destructions associated with the Egyptian campaigns at the close of the Hyksos period. This destruction terminated the principal Middle Bronze urban phase at Jericho.

Garstang earlier attributed a destruction to circa 1400 BCE and associated it with the biblical account in the Book of Joshua. Kenyon’s revised stratigraphy placed the major destruction approximately 150 years earlier, at the end of Middle Bronze II.

Late Bronze Age
Following the Middle Bronze Age (circa 1550–1200 BCE) destruction, occupation at Tell es-Sultan was markedly reduced. Kenyon’s excavations indicated limited Late Bronze Age I settlement, consisting primarily of ephemeral domestic remains and small-scale occupation rather than a fortified urban center.

Imported Cypriot and Mycenaean ceramics, common at major Late Bronze centers in Canaan, are scarce at Jericho. The archaeological record suggests that during the Late Bronze Age Jericho was a minor settlement rather than a significant fortified city.

This assessment has direct implications for historical reconstructions of the Late Bronze Age southern Levant and for interpretations of the conquest narrative in the Book of Joshua. On current stratigraphic and ceramic evidence, no substantial fortified city existed at Tell es-Sultan in the 13th century BCE.

Iron Age I
Iron Age I (circa 1200–1000 BCE) remains at Tell es-Sultan are limited. Sparse architectural and ceramic evidence indicates intermittent occupation in the early Iron Age. The settlement did not recover its Middle Bronze urban scale.

Biblical references to Jericho in the early monarchic period (e.g., 1 Kings 16:34) pertain to Iron Age occupation but do not correspond to a large fortified center on the tell. Archaeological data indicate small-scale habitation rather than substantial urban development.

circa 10,000-2,350 BCE

Archaeological Area M
Site M was opened by Kathleen M. Kenyon on the western side of the site, just to the north of Trench I. Here, the earliest occupational levels of the Jerichoan settlement was explored down to the bedrock, from the Early Bronze Age (3000-2350 BCE) line of fortifications (still visible in the western section) up to the lowest Proto-Neolithic (10,000-8500 BCE) deposits, reaching a depth of 15 meters. The Proto-Neolithic, often identified with the Natufian culture (circa 12,500–9,500 BCE) in the Levant, represents the critical transitional phase between nomadic hunter-gatherer life and the agricultural Neolithic.

1) Proto-Neolithic Period (10,000-8500 BCE): the most ancient layers date from the Proto-Neolithic Period (circa 4000/4500 BCE), and were represented by huts made of clay and very primitive brick of balls of mud.

2) Pre-Pottery Neolithic A (8500-7500 BCE): during the PPNA period a definitive settlement of a developed early farming community is represented by long lived houses with solid bricks walls.

3) The subsequent PPNB period (Pre-Pottery Neolithic B, circa 7500-6000 BCE) is illustrated by enclosures, houses made of elongated bricks with plastered floors, burials in the fill beneath the floors, and by a wall incorporating enormous orthostat slabs (town wall?) still visible along the east side of the excavated area. Some human crania, grouped and buried beneath the houses, attesting to an ancestors’ cult, were found in layers of this period.

4) The Pottery Neolithic Period (PNA-B, 6000-4300 BCE) consists of unimpressive but long-lasting occupation layers with pits and scattered stones walls.

5) Shortly after the beginning of the Early Bronze Age, the first city walls testify to the birth of a real city (EB II-III, 3000-2350 BCE): three successive mud-brick defensive lines over stone foundation have been identified (the last one burnt in a fierce fire); their superimposition is clearly visible in the western section of the square.

6) Erosion destroyed all traces of any following occupation in this area. The final evidence was a large Byzantine pit, testifying to the use of this sector of the mound as a quarry.

circa 8300 BCE

Pre-pottery Neolithic Era Tower
During her excavations, Dame Kenyon found a cylindrical stone tower about 26 feet high and 28 feet in diameter just inside the oldest Jericho walls. The tower, incorporating an internal stairway, has been dated to at least 8000 BCE, making it perhaps the world’s oldest man-made structure. Archaeologists originally thought the tower had defensive or irrigation functions, but recent studies suggest it marked the summer solstice. Whatever its purpose, the Jericho tower remained the tallest man-made structure in the world until about 2650 BCE, when it was surpassed by the stepped pyramid of Djoser in ancient Egypt, built during the Old Kingdom period.

The Tower of Jericho and Karahan Tepe are considered roughly contemporary, both dating to the Pre-Pottery Neolithic (PPN) period, specifically around the 10th to 9th millennium BCE. While they belong to the same broad era, Karahan Tepe likely predates the completion of the Jericho Tower by several centuries.

circa 2750-1750 BCE

Area G
The so-called “Spring Hill”, the small mound dominating the spring of 'Ain es-Sultan (Biblical Spring of Prophet Elisha) and the nearby Jericho Oasis, was the centre of the city of Jericho since its earliest stages of occupation. On top of the Spring Hill the main buildings of the city arose during the Bronze Age and Iron Age, a palace and possibly a temple.

THE PALACES: This important area was investigated by all of the expeditions which worked at Tell es-Sultan, bringing to light the Canaanite Palaces of the 3rd millennium and 2nd millennium BCE, and an Iron Age II (840-720 BCE) public building (called “Hilani”).

The Italian-Palestinian excavations brought to light a palace, dating from Early Bronze III (2700-2350 BCE), built on three terraces on the eastern flank of the hill. It was destroyed by a fierce fire. A whole set of storage jars was found in the central hall of the Palace, while in a nearby room the spout of a red-polished cult vessel, decorated with a bull's head, was retrieved. The palace architecture was noteworthy, with carefully lime-plastered walls, benches, wooden pillars, and several valuable archaeological finds (including a copper dagger).

THE MB PRINCELY TOMB 5: A Middle Bronze Age mud-brick-built tomb (D.641) was dug towards 1800 BCE on top of the ruins of the 3 millennium BCE building. It belonged to a group of intra-moenia tombs located underneath the MB palace. Within the tomb two flexed bodies were buried, among which a female approx. 12-14 years old, with two sacrificed animals and six complete vessels containing food offerings. The young. lady wore bronze earrings, a necklace of carnelian and rock crystal beads, a bronze pin for closing the cloth on the left shoulder, three chains of frit beads and a digital bronze ring with a scarab (used as an amulet), while another scarab (imitating: Egyptian models but locally produced) was placed under the head.

The latter scarab bears a hieroglyphic inscription giving the ancient Canaanite name of Tell es-Sultan: Rwha, that is, in the West Semitic language of the circa 2~ millennium BCE, the same name of today, ar-Riha, to be connected with a Semitic root meaning “moon”, or “scent”; “perfume”, from the many flowers which populate the Jericho Oasis.

circa 2700-2350 BCE

Area B
In the archaeological area B, the most notable structures identified were the city walls and building B1, dating back to circa 2700-2350 BCE.

The main defensive lines of the Early Bronze age were also identified at Jericho, marking the earliest human occupation and urban transformation of this multi-millenary site. The flourishing EBA III city was encircled by a double line of fortifications constituted by two massive mud-brick walls, the inner, 4 meters thick, and the outer, running in parallel lines around the top of the mound.

BUILDING B1 (circa 2450-2350 BCE): In Area B, where the city-walls are visible today in correspondence of the south-west corner of the town, a building erected on the inner side of the city wall was brought to light. A room of this building was equipped with stone mortars fixed into the floor for grinding cereals, olives and lentils, while another had a basalt-stone paved hearth in a corner. ceramic materials found in these rooms and stratigraphy allow to date it to the final stage of the Early Bronze Age (EB IIIB, circa 2450-2350 BCE).

A passage in the main inner wall was identified in Area B. The south gate consisted of a bent axis passageway exploiting for a stretch the gap inside the double line fortification. It was obliterated at the end of EB IIIA period, after a dramatic collapse accompanied by a fierce fire. It had a width of around 0.15 meter, and a length of approx. 2.4 meters. Collapsed structures were incoporated in the last reconstruction of the inner city wall in EB IIIB period, when building B1 was erected abutting against the inner face of the latter.

circa 2650-2350 BCE

Early Bronze III Dwelling Quarter in Area F
On the northern plateau of the tell, in Area F, a huge portion of an Early Bronze Age IIIA dwelling quarter was excavated; nine domestic units in quite good state of preservation were exposed on the eastern and estern side of the street. Each house was provided with a hearth and various working installations, such as benches, cutting and grinding slabs, pulping platforms and holes. Findings belong to the ordinary domestic assemblage, mainly illustrating food production and preparation.

circa 2450-2350 BCE

Early Bronze IIIB Building in Area B
Immediately inside the inner line of the souther city-wall, a building dating from the Early Bronze IIIB (circa 2450-2350 BCE) was excavated and restored in year 1997-1999 CE. Building B1 included a row of rectangular rooms, parallel to the city-wall: finds suggest they were devoted to food production. It was destroyed by a violent conflagration, as it is testified by its main wall ruinously collapsed around 2350 BCE.

circa 1800-1650 BCE

Middle Bronze II Dwellings in Area A
A major result of the Italian-Palestinian expedition was the discovery of a Middle Bronze II lower city, encompassing the tell on the eastern and southern sides. A group of houses was excavated outside Building A1 and against the Tower, and gave back a large inventory of domestic items and pottery, as well as some interesting finds, such as a calcite alabastron, and a bronze adze.

circa 200-300 CE

Roman Era Winepress
The Austro-German archaeological expedition brought to light a plastered floor, a wall and two wine presses possibly belonging to a rural villa erected on the south-eastern slope of the tell.

circa 9000 BCE

Jericho Skulls
The collection of Jericho skulls constitutes a significant assemblage of Neolithic bio-artifacts originally recovered from Tell es-Sultan (Ancient Jericho) in Palestine. The primary discovery occurred in 1953 under the direction of Kathleen Kenyon, who unearthed a cache of seven plastered crania, with subsequent excavations in 1956 and 1958 bringing the site total to approximately ten specimens. Chronologically assigned to the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B (PPNB) period—roughly 7000–6000 BCE—these items are characterized by the post-mortem removal of the mandible and the application of lime plaster to the facial skeleton. Internally, the crania were typically packed with soil to provide structural support for the modeling of lifelike features, including noses, ears, and cheeks. A hallmark of the Jericho collection is the use of bivalve or cowrie shells to simulate eyes, sometimes accompanied by traces of red or black pigment to represent skin tones or ritual markings.