The Qarassa North Tell excavations, conducted between 2007 and 2010 by a French-Syrian-Spanish team, were the final phase of a program of research that began in 2002 with the Leja archaeological surveys. Following the surveys, excavations started on the southern tell of Qarassa in 2007, with the aim of assessing the Bronze and Iron Age sequence identified among modern houses scattered on the southern tell during previous surveys. In 2008, surface collection and limited soundings on the northern tell revealed archaeological material that appeared to derive from the Neolithic period. While microlithic materials near the tell pointed to a possible Khiamian and Natufian occupation on the edge of the basaltic plateau, naviform blades on the tell slopes as well as pottery sherds suggested the possibility of a long Neolithic occupation spanning the Pre- Pottery Neolithic B (PPNB) to the Chalcolithic.
Two seasons of excavation at different locations on the northern tell and the basaltic plateau facing it have produced improved chronological and cultural models of the Southern Levant in a region that has thus far been lacking in well-preserved archaeological sequences from the Natufian to the Chalcolithic.