Atlit Yam
| הכפר הנאוליתי בעתלית-ים | |
Submerged stone structure
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 Location off the coast of Haifa District, Israel
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| Location | Off the coast of Atlit, Israel |
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| Region | Eastern Mediterranean Sea |
| Coordinates | 32°42′38.98″N 34°56′6.54″E / 32.7108278°N 34.9351500°ECoordinates: 32°42′38.98″N 34°56′6.54″E / 32.7108278°N 34.9351500°E |
| Type | Settlement |
| Area | 40 dunams (9.9 acres) |
| History | |
| Founded | 6900 BCE |
| Abandoned | 6300 BCE |
| Periods | Pre-Pottery Neolithic B |
Atlit Yam is an ancient submerged Neolithic village off the coast of Atlit, Israel.
Atlit-Yam provides the earliest known evidence for an agro-pastoral-marine subsistence system on the Levantine coast. The site of Atlit Yam has been carbon-dated to be between 8900 and 8300 years old (calibrated dates) and belongs to the final Pre-Pottery Neolithic B period. Today, it lies between 8-12m (25-40 ft) beneath sea level in the Bay of Atlit, at the mouth of the Oren river on the Carmel coast. It covers an area of ca. 40,000 square meters (10 acres).
Underwater excavations have uncovered rectangular houses and a well. The site was covered by the eustatic rise of sea-levels after the end of the Ice age. It is assumed that the contemporary coast-line was about 1 km (a half-mile) west of the present coast. Piles of fish ready for trade or storage have led scientists to conclude that the village was abandoned suddenly. An Italian study led by Maria Pareschi of the Italian National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology in Pisa indicates that a volcanic collapse of the eastern flank of Mount Etna 8,500 years ago would likely have caused a 10-storey (40 m or 130 ft) tsunami to engulf some Mediterranean coastal cities within hours. Some scientists point to the apparent abandonment of Atlit Yam around the same time as further evidence that such a tsunami did indeed occur.
Submerged settlements and shipwrecks have been found on the Carmel coast since 1960, in the wake of large-scale sand quarrying. In 1984, marine archaeologist Ehud Galili spotted ancient remains whilst surveying the area for shipwrecks. Remains of rectangular houses and hearth-places have been found, along with a well that currently lies 10.5 m (35 ft) below sea-level, constructed of dry-stone walling, with a diameter of 1.5 m (5 ft) and a depth of 5.5 m (20 ft) lower. The fill contained flints, artifacts of ground stone and bone and animal bones in two separate layers. The upper layer contained partly articulated animal bones, which were presumably thrown in after the well went out of use. Other round structures at the site may also be wells. Galili believes that the water in the wells gradually became contaminated with seawater, forcing the inhabitants to abandon their homes.
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Wikipedia