Ancient times
Archaeological research has revealed that there was a funerary and cult centre at Kfar HaHoresh, about two miles (3 km) from current Nazareth, dating back roughly 9000 years to the Pre-Pottery Neolithic B era. The remains of some 65 individuals were found, buried under huge horizontal headstone structures, some of which consisted of up to 3 tons of locally-produced white plaster. Decorated human skulls uncovered there have led archaeologists to believe that Kfar HaHoresh was a major cult centre in that remote era.
In 1620 the Catholic Church purchased an area in the Nazareth basin measuring approx. 100 m × 150 m (328.08 ft × 492.13 ft) on the side of the hill known as the Nebi Sa'in. This "Venerated Area" underwent extensive excavation in 1955-65 by the Franciscan priest Bellarmino Bagatti, "Director of Christian Archaeology." Fr. Bagatti uncovered pottery dating from the Middle Bronze Age (2200 to 1500 BC) and ceramics, silos and grinding mills from the Iron Age (1500 to 586 BC) which indicated substantial settlement in the Nazareth basin at that time. However, lack of archaeological evidence for Nazareth from Assyrian, Babylonian, Persian, Hellenistic or Early Roman times, at least in the major excavations between 1955 and 1990, shows that the settlement apparently came to an abrupt end about 720 BC, when many towns in the area were destroyed by the Assyrians.
Early Christian era
According to the Gospel of Luke, Nazareth was the home village of Mary and also the site of the Annunciation (when Mary was told by the Angel Gabriel that she would have Jesus as her son). In the Gospel of Matthew, Joseph and Mary resettled in Nazareth after returning from the flight from Bethlehem to Egypt. The differences and possible contradictions between these two accounts of the nativity of Jesus are part of the Synoptic Problem. According to the Bible, Nazareth was also where Jesus grew up from some point in his childhood
