Several of these settlements were constructed in the banks of the Beersheba Creek, in areas where water could be obtained by digging wells.
[1][2] The walls of the houses in the later two phases were built from pisé and the roofs consisted of branches covered in clay which lay on top of two large crossed support beams.
In addition to subsistence farming, each settlement tended to specialize in one particular branch of industry: in Bir Tzafad it was ivory carving and in Bir Abu Matar - copper smelting and the production of copper instruments, artifacts and jewelry.
Copper ore, imported from Wadi Feynan or, possibly, from Timna, was ground, 'cooked' in regular ovens and then smelted in small furnaces and distilled in special clay bowls.
[5] People of this culture also produced a multitude of stone (flint) tools, chief among which were fan scrapers, used mainly for working leather.
[5] The locals had to import many of the raw materials used in their industries - the ivory was brought from Africa[5] and the copper from Wady Feynan and from Timna, in the south-eastern Levant (the south of Israel and Jordan).
It may have been due to climate changes or because of a deterioration of security conditions in the region at the end of the 5th millennium BC.