The settlement abuts the Ein Hatzeva bloc of agricultural villages on the opposite side of Highway 90 near the Jordanian border, and is within the boundaries of the Tamar Regional Council.

In 1934, Nelson Glueck identified the location as a Nabatæan caravanserai coopted by the Romans, but the site's true significance was noted by Benjamin Mazar and Michael Avi-Yonah's 1950 discovery of sherds from the First Temple period.

Ranging from tenth to sixth centuries BCE, Negevite was also uncovered at Tel Kadesh Barnea and de:Tell el-Kheleifeh; it is probable that this level was destroyed by Pharaoh Shishaq like other sites of that period.

Censers, chalices, altars and human figurines were unearthed outside the fortress wall on the site's northern edge in 1993, near the foundations of a small building that seems to have been a shrine.

A circular stone stamp seal discovered inside the fortress, picturing two men in long robes on either side of an altar, provides another indicator of Edomite origin.

[5] Evidence of Roman administrative and military presence is plentiful, and the junction of the east–west Incense Road to Gaza and the north–south route to the Red Sea probably made it an economically valuable frontier outpost.

An official Latin inscription that dates several area strongholds to the 3rd century CE was discovered on a large limestone slab at nearby Yotvata bears.

[5] A building fragment stratum from the Early Arab period was uncovered immediately beneath the ground surface, along with evidence of a farm located above the Roman thermæ's remains and below the modern structures.