The lower city was founded in approximately the 18th centuryBCE (Middle Bronze Age) and continued to be settled until the 13th century (the end of the Late Bronze Age) when both the upper and lower city were violently destroyed.
It was finally destroyed by the Assyrian King Tiglath-Pilesser III, who, in 732 BCE conquered the entire area of Galilee (Kings II, 15:29), in a campaign that marked the beginning of the end of the independence of the Northern Kingdom of Israel.
During the 7th - 2nd centuryBCE settlement was confined only to the citadels which were erected in the western extremity of the upper city.