[6] From excavations of the ancient tell (mound created by accumulation of archaeological remains) known as Tel Yavne (Hebrew), which developed on a natural kurkar hill, the area shows to have been inhabited continuously from either the Bronze or Iron Age until the British Mandate.

[10][better source needed] In the 40s AD, a dispute emerged in Jamnia when Gentiles constructed a mud-brick altar to the Emperor, provoking the local Jewish population.

This led the Gentiles to complain to Capito, the imperial revenue collector in Judaea, who reported the matter to Emperor Caligula.

[12] According to rabbinic tradition, Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai and his disciples were permitted to settle in Iamnia during the outbreak of the war, after ben Zakkai, realizing that Jerusalem was about to fall, departed the city and sought the permission of Vespasian, commander of the Roman forces, to settle in Yavne and teach his disciples.

According to the Jerusalem Talmud (Berakhot 1:4), when the rabbis argued over some fine point of Jewish law, a Divine voice (Hebrew: bat ḳol) was heard in Yavne, ruling in favor of the School of Hillel.

[20] The Islamic historian al-Baladhuri (died 892 AD) describes Yibna as one of ten towns in Jund Filastin conquered by the Rashidun army led by 'Amr ibn al-'As in the early 7th century.

[24][25] Abu Hurairah however is buried in Medina, Saudi Arabia, but he[clarification needed] was also venerated in various places in Palestine, namely in Ramle and Yavne.

[28] During the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, residents of Zarnuqa sought refuge in Yibna, but left after the villagers accused them of being traitors.

In 1941, an agreement was reached between the Jewish National Fund and the Mizrachi/Hapoel Mizrachi movements, allocating five hundred dunams in Yavne area for a yeshiva.

In the 1960s, several enterprises moved from Tel Aviv to Yavne, establishing leather, textile, and metallurgy industries.

[33] When Mayor Meir Sheetrit assumed office in 1974, the city became a low-density suburban satellite of Tel Aviv with new construction targeting middle-class families.

[31] According to the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS), in 2021 the ethnic makeup of the city was 99 percent Jewish and others, without significant Arab population.

[34][35] Major companies based in Yavne include Ormat Industries, Aeronautics Defense Systems, Avisar and Orbotech.

In 2019, Merck established an incubator in Yavne with a budget of about €20 million over three years that will invest in startups focusing on semiconductor and display crystal technologies.

[41] In December 2019, a large number of pottery kilns and 1,200-year-old gold coins which may have been a Palestinian potter's "piggy bank" were unearthed in a juglet by the Israeli Antiquities Authority.

[42][43] In August 2020, Israeli archaeologists discovered 425 complete gold coins, most dating to the Abbasid period around 1,100 years ago.

[44] In April 2021, archaeologists announced the discovery of a 1,600-year-old multicolored mosaic dated back to the Byzantine period in an industrial area.

According to IAA archaeologist Elie Haddad, it was the first time that excavators revealed a colored mosaic floor in Yavne.

In 2022, a sling bullet was discovered with the Greek inscription "Victory of Heracles and Hauronas", the two gods were the patrons of the city during the Hellenistic period.