Horbat Natzur is located on a western spur of the Mount Emir ridge, slightly south of the Wadi ‘Ara road. The site was completely excavated within the framework of the Cross-Israel Highway salvage excavation project and it no longer exists.


The site consisted of three secondary areas: the large pebble surface in the north and rocky surfaces in the middle and to the south. According to the geological reconstruction, the site was the inside of a flat stalactite cave that had collapsed and washed away. Stalactites from the edge of the cave were found along the fringes of the settlement that was excavated. Rock-hewn pits and meager construction between bedrock outcrops were found in the settlement remains. Some ten hewn cist graves were excavated next to the wall remains and pits; each one of the graves contained the remains of several articulated skeletons.


With the exception of one pottery sherd from the Early Bronze Age 1B, all of the finds at the site are representative of a homogenous material culture. The pottery vessels included medium and large bowls, kraters, holemouths, jars, goblets and churns. No small V-shaped bowls, pithoi, cornets or incense-burners, which are characteristic of the assemblages of the “Late Chalcolithic” cultures, were found (this definition includes the Ghassulian, Beer Sheva and Golan cultures).


The flint tool assemblage is Chalcolithic and contains bifacial tools, adzes, chisels, fan-scrapers etc. The basalt objects include grinding vessels, bowls and incense burners. The stone incense burners were fashioned with a single thick pedestal, in what is clearly the Wadi Rabah tradition, or with three legs in the Chalcolithic tradition. A number of northern type fiddle-shaped figurines and a few other small finds were recovered.


Some data does exist that allows us to assign the Natzur culture a place chronologically:
• A large pit that contained finds characteristic of this culture was exposed in the excavations at Nahal Zahora, in the Menashe Hills. This pit cuts through the accumulations of the Wadi Rabah layer; that is to say, it postdates the Wadi Rabah layer.
• Pottery sherds characteristic of the Natzur culture were found below the Late Chalcolithic burial stratum in the burial cave in Peqi’in, in the Galilee.


In light of these stratigraphic data, chronologically, the Natzur culture clearly follows the Wadi Rabah culture and predates the Ghassulian culture. One should therefore consider the characteristics of the Natzur material culture as typical of an independent and defined “intermediate culture”.