The K8 House: A new domestic space from the Iron Age II at Tell Halif, Israel

Abstract

In the Iron Age II period of the southern Levant (1000–586 BCE), most data for household studies come from four-room or pillared houses. Tell Halif in southern Israel gives us several examples of the four-room pillared house, including the one identified here as the K8 House, from the eighth century. The purpose of this research is to examine the K8 archaeological remains and add to our understanding of Iron Age houses and households as reflected in the patterning of artefacts in the buildings occupied by the household. Based on the remains preserved in the K8 House, we can identify a set of activities undertaken regularly inside the house. It can be demonstrated from Tell Halif’s archaeological data that, once the specific activities are identified, their organisation also can be identified. In order to understand how space functioned in the K8 House at Tell Halif, a spatial analysis of the archaeological materials was undertaken. Ceramics and microartefacts discovered on floors and in the covering fill provide important sources of data serving to identify activities and helping to assess what type of reductions of the ‘de facto’ refuse may have taken place. The locations of artefacts in the K8 House help to identify activity areas within it.