What about Adam Zartel's Altar site there? His argument does not seem
to have total support, but neither total denial (a la Kempinski!).
The findings of large number of "Clean" animal bones near the site would
seem to validate his argument for an existence of a cultic site there,
obviously much earlier than the Persian period.
Uri Hurwitz Garden City
Yigal Levin wrote, inter alia:
< ...I'd point out
that there is no evidence, textual or archaeological, of there being an
important cultic site on Mt. Gerizim before the Persian Period,...>