 The site was inhabited from Proto-Historic through Modern times.The earliest evidence for settlement is from the Chalcolithic Period (c. 5th millennium BCE), after which there is continuous occupation until the modern Palestinian village of Tell es-Safi, abandoned during the 1948 Arab–Israeli War.During the Early Bronze Age there is evidence of a large urban site, apparently similar to other EB III urban sites in southern Canaan, such as nearby Tel Yarmut (Jarmuth).