Editing Masada (section)

===Chalcolithic period===
An almost inaccessible cave, dubbed Yoram Cave, located on the sheer southern cliff face 100 m below the plateau, has been found to contain numerous plant remains, of which 6,000-year-old [[barley]] seeds were in such good state of preservation that their [[genome]] could be sequenced.<ref name="BIU">{{cite web |title=Genome of 6,000-year-old barley grains sequenced for first time |author=Spokesman BIU |work=Bar-Ilan in the Press |publisher=Bar-Ilan University |date=19 July 2016 |url=http://www1.biu.ac.il/indexE.php?id=33&pt=20&pid=117&level=2&cPath=33&type=1&news=2760 |access-date=12 August 2016}}</ref><ref name="haaretz">{{cite news |author=Ido Efrati |title=Domestication of barley began in northern Israel, 6000-year-old grains reveal |newspaper=Haaretz |date=19 July 2016 |url= http://www.haaretz.com/jewish/archaeology/1.731807 |access-date=12 August 2016 }}</ref> This is the first time that this succeeded with a Chalcolithic plant genome, which is also the oldest one sequenced so far.<ref name="BIU"/> The result helped determine that the earliest domestication of barley, dated elsewhere in the [[Fertile Crescent]] to 10,000 years ago, happened further north up the [[Jordan Rift Valley]], namely in the Upper Jordan Valley{{dubious|Term lacks clear definition in the paper abstract and BIU press releases available online for free. Probably from the sources to the Korazin block – ?|date=August 2016}} in northern Israel.<ref name= NatGen>{{cite journal |title=Genomic analysis of 6,000-year-old cultivated grain illuminates the domestication history of barley |author=Martin Mascher|display-authors=etal|journal=[[Nature Genetics]] |date=18 July 2016 |volume= 48|issue=9|pages=1089–1093|publisher=Macmillan Publishers |doi=10.1038/ng.3611 |pmid=27428749|s2cid=11574248|issn=1061-4036 |url=https://discovery.dundee.ac.uk/en/publications/15d655f0-3be9-4ed4-9338-7c34a1e08754}}</ref> 

The Yoram Cave seeds were found to be fairly different from the wild variety, proof for an already advanced process of domestication, but very similar to the types of barley still cultivated in the region—an indication for remarkable constancy.<ref name= BIU/> Considering the difficulty in reaching the cave, whose mouth opens some 4 m above the exposed access path, the researchers have speculated that it was a place of short-term refuge for Chalcolithic people fleeing an unknown catastrophe.<ref name= BIU/><ref name= ToI>{{cite news |author=Ilan Ben Zion |title=6 millennia old but 'almost fresh,' Masada seeds unravel barley's origins |newspaper=The Times of Israel |date=18 July 2016 |url= http://www.timesofisrael.com/6-millennia-old-but-almost-fresh-masada-seeds-unravel-barleys-origins/ |access-date=12 August 2016 }}</ref>