The survey was conducted on a strip c. 80 m long and 3–5 m wide. The development work and the tall underbrush made it difficult to perform a routine prehistoric survey. Accordingly, a combination of two methods was employed: (1) a selective method of gathering only specimen material that would reflect the distribution of finds along the strip, (2) random marking of 1 sq m squares and collecting all the finds from its surface. Following the first method the survey strip was divided into four north–south secondary strips (each 20 m long) and for the second method two trial squares were marked in the southern strip and all the flint artifacts were gathered from them. A total of c. 2,000 flint items were recovered. The density of flint items in the middle strips was highest, reaching c. 150 items per sq m, which is characteristic of knapping areas. The strips along the fringes of the surveyed area had a flint density of 50–75 items per sq m.

 

The assemblage of flint items included cores, blades and bladelets, industrial debris and tools. The initial evaluation of the assemblage seems to indicate that the industry was intended to produce blades and bladelets, from which tools were prepared. Noteworthy among the outstanding implements was a group of microlith tools (narrow truncated backed bladelets), scrappers and drilling tools, e.g., awls. A few bifacial tools, mostly axes, were also found. Two separate industrial traditions were discerned in the assemblage: an early tradition that included bladelets and microlith tools (geometrics) and belonged to the Kebaran and Geometric Kebaran cultures (15,000–13,000 years BP). The later tradition was typified by bifacial tools and broader blades ascribed to the Pre-pottery Neolithic A culture (10,000 years BP).

 

Previous surveys indicated that the region where the coastal plain meets the western slopes of the mountainous area of the northern Shephelah, along which the Cross Israel Highway runs, was densely inhabited at the end of the prehistoric period (from the Epipalaeolithic period until the Chalcolithic period). The region, which is 80–100 m above sea level today, rich in perennial water sources and close to the fertile valleys, was easily settled, particularly in prehistoric periods, because it was unlikely to be flooded due to fluctuations of the shoreline in the Pleistocene and beginning of the Holocene eras. Two other specialized sites from the Pre-pottery Neolithic A and the Kebaran periods were discovered in the vicinity of Sha‘ar Efrayim in the past (Tel Aviv 25). The two sites, like contemporaneous sites discovered in the regions of Modi‘in, Qula (Firing Zone 203) and Zur Natan (Map of Kefar Sava [77], in preparation) join the series of specialized sites in the region.