This book focuses on the submerged Pre-Pottery Neolithic C settlement of Atlit-Yam (dated to the end of the tenth millennium to end of the ninth millennium BP). Located off the Carmel coast of Israel, it is the earliest and best preserved of 23 submerged prehistoric in situ sites known off the Israeli Mediterranean Sea coast. The site is a unique underwater archaeological locality due to the extensive investigations that have been undertaken and which have exposed a large area comprising a range of architectural features, as well as the broad spectrum, richness and excellent preservation of the finds. The site offers insights into the processes of settlement inundation, which is relevant to sea-level rise nowadays, as well as the circumstances of survival and discovery of submerged sites worldwide.

The chapters in this volume, the first of two, presents aspects of the Atlit-Yam site, including the site's archaeological and physical setting and aspects its material culture (architecture, burials, groundstone and lithic artefacts). These data sets are used to reconstruct aspects of the technology and lifestyle of the community that inhabited it and highlights similarities to contemporaneous sites in the hinterland. The second volume, will deal with the economy, diet and health status of the inhabitants, the site's chronology, and reconstructed paleoenvironment including the geological and geomorphological setting of the site assessed in relation to sea-level rise.

This book fills gaps in our knowledge of the coastal Neolithic of the Southern Levant, by providing an in-depth review of the archaeological remains discovered at this unique, submerged site.

Autorentext

Prof. Ehud (Udi) Galili is a marine archaeologist, currently a research associate at the School of Archaeology and Maritime Cultures of the University of Haifa. He was introduced to underwater archaeology as a volunteer member in the Underwater Exploration Society of Israel (1965-1983). Over the years 1983-1988, he directed underwater archaeological rescue surveys and excavations along the Israeli coast, on behalf of the University of Haifa and in 1990, he established the Marine Unit of the Israel Antiquities Authority which he directed until 2004. Since 1984, Galili has directed the Atlit-Yam Excavation Project and investigation of the submerged Neolithic settlements off the Carmel coast on behalf of Haifa University (1983-1989) and the Israel Antiquities Authority (1990-2004), work which continues (since 2024) under the auspices of the University of Haifa. Liora Kolska Horwitz is a prehistorian affiliated with the National Natural History Collections of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, having completed her Ph.D. at Tel Aviv University. Her research focuses on the cultural and biological interface between humans and their environment, with an expertise in archaeozoology. Aside from a brief period (1990-1996) working as the archaeozoologist of the Israel Antiquities Authority, she has worked as a freelance researcher and external lecturer at Tel Aviv University, The Hebrew University and Ben Gurion University. She has engaged in field work and research projects at numerous archaeological sites in both South Africa and Israel-from early hominins to contemporary periods-and since 2003 has co-directed the Wonderwerk Cave project (South Africa).