The area in which Efrat was constructed was already a settlement in the Bronze Age. Archeology by Rivka Gonen, summarized in 1979, revealed a cemetery consisting of a tumulus built over a platform structure and some 27 Bronze Age burial caves of the shaft-tomb type, many of which had been reused over long stretches of time. These tombs were reused in the Middle Bronze Age. Additionally, one of the three ancient aqueducts supplying Jerusalem runs beneath Efrat.