So begins a lengthy period of intermittent settlement by farming communities attracted by its thin light sands. Their presence is revealed from their residue of stone and flint tool debris, with groups distinguishable one from another through the succession in pottery styles found at the site. Round-based Carinated Bowl Wares indicate settlement at Gefrin around 4000BCE. This style of pottery continued in use until superceded around 3500BCE by communities using Impressed Wares, – a thicker and often heavily decorated ware in a wide range of bowl, bucket and jar forms. By the close of the Neolithic, and overlapping into the Chalcolithic/Early Bronze Age (2400-2000BCE) bucket-shaped forms emerge at the site we label Grooved Ware from the linear and impressed decoration and occasionally applied cordons they bear.

While the succession of pottery styles hint at a lengthy and complex activity at Gefrin throughout the Neolithic period, the number of features of recognizably Neolithic date remains in single figures. They include one, possibly two pits found in the early 1950’s near the northern limit of excavation, and not far from these a complex pit deposit of domestic debris that included Grooved Ware and a fine polished stone axehead. From near the eastern edge of the site two pits were excavated in 1976, one producing a middle Neolithic radiocarbon date and the other packed with early Neolithic Carinated Ware. 

Though our understanding of this complex period is increasing, at Gefrin the picture remains a tantalising flicker of shadows, – powerful argument for more focussed attention on extensive areas of excavation in future, as well as critical revision of the excavated evidence to date. Might we not for example, bear in mind the possibility of the post-built rectangular buildings found beneath the palace buildings in 1956 being their houses?