This page is subject to the extended confirmed restriction related to the Arab-Israeli conflict.Abu Zurayq is a cluster of archaeological sites at a well-watered spot at the western edge of the Jezreel Valley and its transition to the Menashe Heights, next to Highway 66, between the modern kibbutzim of HaZore'a and Mishmar HaEmek.

Based on the pottery collected by his team, the site was inhabited continuously from the Neolithic to the Ottoman periods.

[5] In the 20th century, it was a Palestinian Turkmen village in the Haifa Subdistrict of Mandatory Palestine, situated near Wadi Abu Zurayq.

Abu Zurayq village was situated in the northern foothills of an area overlooking the Jezreel Valley called "Bilad al-Rawha" ('The Fragrant Country').

[9] The prehistoric site of Abu Zurayq was found south of the mound, on the sloping terrace east of the foothills of the Menashe Heights.

During the Neolithic period there was a large lake next to the site covering part of what is today the Jezreel Valley.

The second expedition included Italians from Centro Camuno di Studi Preistorici and Israelis from the Tel Aviv University and the Wilfrid Israel museum.

[10] The "Late Neolithic" settlement is identified by Garfinkel and Matskevich as part of the Wadi Raba culture.

The economy of this settlement was based on various practices such as hunting, fishing, animal husbandry, agriculture and trade.

The last group represents only a small fraction of the findings and was made of well-refined clay which is also rich in carbonates, appearing white.

[16] Among the stone objects there were over a hundred tools for a variety of uses including agriculture, wood-making and animal products.,[17] Other findings include Sling stones, two figurines, one looks like a dog and the other represents a female, a bone tool used for cutting and polishing, punched seashells and a sandstone painted with ochre.

[20] South of the unexcavated mound is a burial cave, dug into a soft limestone exposure, with two chambers and a total length of 9 meters.

At least ten people were buried in this cave, which is relatively a small number considering that the pottery found in the cave span a time frame of 300 years from the 17th to 14th centuries BC (From the Middle Bronze Age II to the Late Bronze Age II).

and the presence of a terracotta figurine of a bird-shaped woman with large pierced ears, a style common in LB II Cyprus.

[21] Benvenisti writes that the grave of Abu Zurayq al-Attili, a local Muslim saint from Attil, predated the establishment of the village and gave its name to the site.

They were part of the larger nomadic Turkmen community that lived in the Marj Ibn Amer plain (the Jezreel Valley) and in their transition to a sedentary lifestyle also founded the nearby villages of Abu Shusha, al-Mansi, Ayn al-Mansi, Khirbat Lid, and al-Ghubayya at around the same time Abu Zurayq was founded.

[29][2][3] Abu Zurayq had a total land area of 6,493 Turkish dunams, most of which—4,401 dunams—were privately owned by Arabs; the remainder was public property.

Abu Zurayq contained a number of houses that were dispersed throughout the village and on a nearby hill near the highway between Jenin and Haifa, most of them built at a relative distance from each other.

[9] Abu Zurayq's residents had traditionally maintained cordial relations with the nearby Jewish kibbutz of HaZorea, including low-level economic cooperation, particularly with regards to agriculture.

[28] In the lead-up to the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, as part of Jewish efforts to clear the area around Mishmar HaEmek of Palestinian Arabs, on 12 April 1948, Palmach units of the Haganah took over Abu Zurayq.

[33] According to the account of a Middle East scholar and resident from HaZore'a, Eliezer Bauer, following its capture, Abu Zurayq's men, who were unaffiliated with any Palestinian militia and did not resist the Haganah, "tried to escape and save themselves by fleeing" to nearby fields but were intercepted by armed Jewish residents of nearby kibbutzim and moshavim.

[34] Most of the people who managed to escape or were expelled from Abu Zurayq ended up in makeshift camps around Jenin.

[32] Following the 1948 war, the area was incorporated into the State of Israel, and as of 1992, the land had been left undeveloped and the closest populated place is HaZorea.