I don’t have a subscription and haven’t read the entire article, but how does this change thinking? We’ve seen similar fertility goddesses from other very early Neolithic settlements.
Not clear, is it? Gotta pull in readers I suppose.
To read the whole thing without subscription (this was pointed out to me a week or so ago), do a search, and use that resulting link — it’s the same URL, but because of the source of the jump-from, it loads the whole thing more often than not.
http://www.google.com/search?q=New+archaeological+finds+challenge+ideas+of+prehistoric+Israel
Basically, the Jericho 9 and the Yarmoukian cultures were contemporary and not geographically isolated; until now it was thought they were isolated, and before that, that Jericho 9 was later and took over the same areas from the Yarmoukian.