History
Atlit-Yam provides the earliest known evidence for an agro-pastoral-marine subsistence system on the Levantine coast. The final Pre-Pottery Neolithic B site of Atlit Yam dates between 6900 and 6300 BC. Today, it lies between 8–12 m 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 m².
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 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) 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.
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