The numerous fruit and cereal grain remains preserved in anaerobic conditions under silt and water are also exceedingly rare due to their general quick decomposition.

Ohalo II is the name given to the archaeological site located on the southwest shore of the Sea of Galilee in the Levant Jordan Rift Valley.

[5] The site is littered with a treasure trove of artifacts, including flints, animal bones, and remnants of fruit and cereal grains.

But what may have been tragic for its ancient inhabitants turned out to be a boon for archaeologists: at the same time as the village was destroyed, water levels at the Sea of Galilee rose and buried the site.

Fortunately, ...calm, relatively deep water covered the site, and the immediate deposition of fine clay and silt layers began.

[6]This submersion and sedimentation (likely in combination with the charring) slowed the growth of bacteria in organic plant remains, preventing their destruction and preserving them through millennia on the lake bottom.

Dani Nadel of University of Haifa excavated Ohalo II in 1989 during the first drought-induced drop in water levels at the Sea of Galilee.

Other discoveries at these sites found similar architectural methods in housing structures from Ohalo II, that were being used at Ein Gev I, and still present during the Natufian culture and Pre-Pottery Neolithic A.

Most importantly, the extremely high concentration of seeds clustering around the grinding stone in the northern wall of Hut 1 led archeologist Ehud Weiss to believe that humans at Ohalo II processed the grain before consumption.

A 2015 study reported that its "findings represent the earliest indications for the presence of proto-weeds in a site predating the Neolithic plant domestication by some 11,000 years.

[12] There is significant evidence to suggest that the center of activity for the inhabitants of Hut 1 was along the northern wall where the 40 cm long trapezoidal stone laid.

A fairly large concentration of minute bladelets and flakes, along with other angular and fire-cracked fragments were found in the southern area, particularly around the entrance of Hut 1.

Use-wear analysis of five glossed flint blades found at Ohalo II provides the earliest evidence for the use of composite cereal harvesting tools.

[16] The wear traces indicate that tools were used for harvesting near-ripe semi-green wild cereals, shortly before grains are ripe and disperse naturally.