Archaeologists excavations have yielded remains from Early Bronze Age and Middle Bronze Age. Both local and imported pottery from this period has been found. A scarab, in bone, dating to the 1750–1550 BCE has also been found. Two Roman lamps have been found here. Archeological excavations have revealed major remains from the Byzantine and the Mamluk eras.
Ottoman era
Jatt, like the rest of Palestine, was incorporated into the Ottoman Empire in 1517, and in the census of 1596, the village was located in the nahiya of Sara in the liwa of Lajjun. It had a population of 5 households, all Muslim. It paid a fixed tax of 25% on agricultural products, including wheat, barley, summer crops, goats and beehives, in addition to occasional revenues; the taxes totalled 5,500 akçe. In 1870, Victor Guérin noted here: "Several ancient cisterns are scattered about on the rocky plateau upon which stands Jett. The houses are rudely built. In the midst of the small materials of which they are principally constructed I observed a certain number of cut stones of ancient date. In the courtyard of one house I found an old capital of white marble hollowed to serve as a mortar, and now used to grind coffee. At the foot of the hill is a well, which probably is of ancient date." He further noted that Jatt had fourteen hundred inhabitants. In 1882, the Palestine Exploration Fund's Survey of Western Palestine described it: "Evidently an ancient site ; a moderate-sized village of mud and stone on a high mound at the edge of the plain. It stands beside the main road tothe north, near the junction with that from Shechem, and about 2 1/2 miles north of the road through Attil to the great plain. The village is surrounded with wells, and has a few olives on the west. There are caves to the north, and springs about a mile to the north-west. It may also perhaps be the Jethu, or Gath, of Thothmes III, a place north of the road which he pursued to Megiddo."
In the 1922 census of Palestine conducted by the British Mandate authorities, Jatt had a population of 680 Muslims, increasing in the 1931 census to 780 Muslim, living in 165 houses. In the 1945 statistics the population of Jatt was 1,120 Muslims, with a total of 9,631 dunams of land according to an official land and population survey. 1,233 dunams were plantations and irrigable land, 8,228 used for cereals, while 31 dunams were built-up land.
Post 1948
In 1959 the town was declared a local council. In 2003 Jatt was merged with nearby Baqa al-Gharbiyye to form the city ofBaqa-Jatt. However, the merger was reversed in 2010.
Politics
Direct elections were held for the mayoralty for the first time in the 1960s, with Ali Abdul-Razzaq Malak, succeeded by Sharif Jameel Gara. Then in 1973, Ahmed Mahmoud Abu Asba was elected; he was re-elected for a second term in 1983. The 1988 elections were won by Galal Abd al-Kader Wattad, and in 1993 Ahmed Mahmoud Abu Asba returned to the mayoralty. The 1998 elections were won by Dr. Mohammad Hassan Abu Foul. Following the local council's re-establishment in 2010, Khaled Gharra was elected mayor. The current mayor is Muhammad Taher Wattad. Former Knesset Member and writer Muhammed Wattad was from Jatt.
