It lies on the eastern slopes of the Menashe Heights and the western edge of the Jezreel Valley.

The site spans an area of one hectare and is believed to have been a dependency of the nearby Tel Yokneam.

The site hosted some human activity during the Neolithic and Chalcolithic periods, as well as parts of the Bronze Age.

Unlike all urban centers in northern Israel, the village in Tel Qiri, which flourished during the Iron Age, escaped all military events and no traces of destruction can be found there.

This minor, damaged and seemingly insignificant site yielded an amazingly rich and diverse quantity of remains of different periods.

It does not have the typical shape of a mound, but is more like a terrace, sloping steeply towards the nearby Shofet River.

The climate is moderate, water is abundant, and the soil is fertile, making it an excellent place for an agricultural settlement.

The activity of the kibbutz, as well as the digging of defensive positions during the 1948 war, have severely damaged the site.

[8] Most of the remains from the later days of the Iron Age were partially or completely lost due to modern residential construction.

[10] A system of houses and agricultural installations was found dated to the Iron Age I period, between the 12th to 10th centuries BCE.

[11][12] At the beginning of the Iron Age II period, around the 9th century BCE, the supposed time of the United Kingdom of Israel and later the Samarian Kingdom of Israel, an entire residential section of the village was replaced by an oil production industry.

[14] In 720 BCE the northern Kingdom of Israel was conquered by the Neo-Assyrian Empire along with Tel Qiri and the rest of the north.

A flower pot was discovered, and parallels of this vessel were later found at the nearby Tel Yokneam and Tell Keisan.

These vessels are foreign to the Jezreel Valley and seem to have been imported from the coastal region and are probably of Phoenician origin; and Tel Keisan is a possible option.

[15] The Philistines were an ancient nation mentioned numerous times in the Hebrew Bible for their wars and conflicts against the Israelites.

Scholars have attributed the appearance of Philistine pottery in northern Israel to their role as Egyptian mercenaries during the time Egypt ruled over the Levant, and either an indication of their expansion north or their trade with Israelite and Canaanite cities.

In the latter case there are usually a male, a female, and a child, and around a third of them are younger than 17, while only one skeleton belonged to a person older than 50.

An extensive study of the skeletons was made by Baruch Arensburg of the Tel Aviv University.

One theory suggests that these are Jews who were expelled during the Babylonian captivity and returned by the royal decree of the Persian emperor Cyrus the Great.

The most plausible explanation for the Iranian-looking skulls is simply that these people originated in a non-Mediterranean region and most probably from Iran.

[19] Sixteen Muslim burials were discovered, dug into the latest settlement layers from Roman and Hellenistic times.

[21] A bronze coin from the Umayyad period was found, with the inscription "By the name of Allah this fils was struck at Tiberias".