The Ghassulians, whose origin is unknown, immigrate beginning around 3800 BCE to Palestine, mainly in the south of Palestine, with an extension up the coastal plain and its fringes.

Ghassulian refers to a culture and an archaeological stage dating to the Middle Chalcolithic Period in the Southern Levant (around 3800 BCE to around 3350 BCE).

Its type-site, Tulaylat al-Ghassul, is located in the Jordan Valley near the Dead Sea in modern Jordan and was excavated in the 1930s.

The Ghassulian stage is characterized by small hamlet settlements of mixed farming peoples, and migrates southwards from Syria into Israel.

Houses are trapezoid-shaped and built of mud-brick, covered with remarkable polychrome wall paintings.

Their pottery is highly elaborate, including footed bowls and horn-shaped drinking goblets, indicating the cultivation of wine.

Several samples display the use of sculptural decoration or of a reserved slip (a clay and water coating partially wiped away while still wet).

The Ghassulians are a Chalcolithic culture, as they also smelt copper.

Funerary customs show evidence that they buried their dead in stone dolmens.

Ghassulian culture has been identified at numerous other places in what is today southern Israel, especially in the region of Beersheba.

The Ghassulian culture correlates closely with the Amratian of Egypt and may have had trading affinities (e.g., the distinctive churns, or “bird vases”) with early Minoan culture in Crete.