[1][2] It is located adjacent to the Ein es-Sultan refugee camp, two kilometres north of the centre of the Palestinian city of Jericho.

The droughts and cold of the Younger Dryas came to an end around 9600 BCE, ushering in the Holocene epoch and the Epipaleolithic period of human history.

The resulting warmer climate made it possible for Natufian groups to extend the duration of their stay, eventually leading to year-round habitation and permanent settlement.

[7] The Pre-Pottery Neolithic A phase at Tell es-Sultan (c. 8500–7500 BCE)[8] saw the emergence of one of the world's first major proto-cities.

As the world warmed up, a new culture based on agriculture and sedentary dwelling emerged, which archaeologists have termed "Pre-Pottery Neolithic A" (abbreviated as PPNA), sometimes called the Sultanian era after the town.

The PPNA-era town, a settlement of around 40,000 square metres (430,000 sq ft), contained round mud-brick houses, yet no street planning.

Circular dwellings were built of clay and straw bricks left to dry in the sun, which were plastered together with a mud mortar.

This second settlement, established in 6800 BCE, perhaps represents the work of an invading people who absorbed the original inhabitants into their dominant culture.

Artifacts dating from this period include ten plastered human skulls, painted so as to reconstitute the individuals' features.

[19] These represent either teraphim or an early example of portraiture in art history, and it is thought that they were kept in people's homes while the bodies were buried.

Other items discovered included dishes and bowls carved from soft limestone, spindle whorls made of stone and possible loom weights, spatulae and drills, stylised anthropomorphic plaster figures, almost life-size, anthropomorphic and theriomorphic clay figurines, as well as shell and malachite beads.

[24][25] According to Lorenzo Nigro, the top Late Bronze IIB layers of the tell were heavily cut by levelling operations during the Iron Age, which explains the scarcity of 13th century materials.

[31] On this basis Warren proposed the surrounding mounds as the site of Ancient Jericho, but he did not have the funds to carry out a full excavation.

[32] Ernst Sellin and Carl Watzinger excavated Tell es-Sultan and Tulul Abu el-'Alayiq between 1907 and 1909 and in 1911, finding the remains of two walls which they initially suggested supported the biblical account of the Battle of Jericho.

[33] The site was again excavated by John Garstang between 1930 and 1936, who again raised the suggestion that remains of the upper wall was that described in the Bible, and dated to around 1400 BCE.

Her excavations discovered a tower and wall in trench I. Kenyon provided evidence that both constructions dated much earlier than previous estimates of the site's age, to the Neolithic, and were part of an early proto-city.

Her excavations found a series of seventeen early Bronze Age walls, some of which she thought may have been destroyed by earthquakes.

Another wall was built by a more sophisticated culture in the Middle Bronze Age with a steep plastered escarpment leading up to mud bricks on top.

Since 2009 the Italian-Palestinian archaeological project of excavation and restoration was resumed by Rome "La Sapienza" University and Palestinian MOTA-DACH under the direction of Lorenzo Nigro and Hamdan Taha.

[36] Renewed excavations were carried out at Tell es-Sultan from 2009 to 2023 by the Italian-Palestinian Expedition directed by Lorenzo Nigro for Sapienza University of Rome and Jehad Yasine for the Ministry of Tourism & Antiquities of Palestine.