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Submerged Pottery Neolithic Settlements off the Coast of Israel: Subsistence, Material Culture and the Development of Separate Burial Grounds

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Under the Sea: Archaeology and Palaeolandscapes of the Continental Shelf

Part of the book series: Coastal Research Library ((COASTALRL,volume 20))

Abstract

Eight inundated archaeological sites dating to the Pottery Neolithic period (Wadi Rabah culture), 8000–6500 cal. BP, have been exposed under water off the Carmel coast of Israel. The sites represent in situ settlements with architectural remains comprising domestic stone-built structures and water wells built of wood and stone. Rich assemblages of flint tools, ground stone artefacts and pottery were recovered in addition to organic remains (wooden bowls, baskets etc.). Faunal and botanical remains demonstrate that the subsistence economy consisted of animal husbandry, hunting and fishing complemented by cultivation of domestic crops and gathering of wild plants. Special features include the beginning of olive oil extraction, a major component of the Mediterranean subsistence economy, demonstrated at the site of Kfar Samir, while at the Neve-Yam site, the earliest separate burial ground in the region was found with a concentration of stone-built cist graves.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The Wadi Rabah (WR) culture is attributed by some to the late Pottery Neolithic period (Gopher and Gophna 1993) and by others to the Early Chalcolithic period (Garfinkel and Dag 2008).

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Acknowledgments

We wish to thank EU COST Action TD0902 SPLASHCOS, the National Geographic Research Foundation, CARE Archaeological Foundation, MAFCAF Foundation, and Sandy and Joseph Lepelstat, the Honor Frost foundation and the Dan David foundation their financial support. The Israel Antiquities Authority, the Israel Prehistoric Society, and Haifa University are acknowledged for their financial and institutional support of the underwater excavations. We also wish to express our appreciation to the divers and archaeologists who participated in the underwater excavations; to the many researchers who subsequently contributed to the study of the finds; S. Ben-Yehuda and B. Galili for the drawings; J. Galili, G. Arbel and I. Grinberg for the underwater photographs; M. Rasovsky for the treatment of organic material; I Carmi, D. Segal and E. Boaretto of the Weizmann Institute for radiocarbon dating; and I. Hershkovitz, M. Weinstein-Evron, N. Liphshitz, M. Kislev, A. Hartman, A. Gopher, D. Nadel, R. Barkai, A. Shifroni, D. Gersht, H. Michelin, K. Sharvit, I. Zohar, O. Lernau and H. K. Mienis for research on different aspects of the submerged sites and to O. Bar-Yosef, Y. Garfinkel and U. Avner for their comments on the discassion.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Zinman Institute of Archaeology, University of Haifa, Haifa, 180, Atlit, 30300, Israel

    Ehud Galili

  2. Israel Antiquities Authority, 180, Atlit, 30300, Israel

    Ehud Galili & Baruch Rosen

  3. National Natural History Collections, Faculty of Life Science, The Hebrew University, Berman Building, E. Safra Campus, Jerusalem, 91904, Israel

    Liora Kolska Horwitz

  4. Israel Antiquities Authority, 586, Jerusalem, 91994, Israel

    Vered Eshed

Authors
  1. Ehud Galili
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  2. Liora Kolska Horwitz
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  3. Vered Eshed
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  4. Baruch Rosen
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Correspondence to Ehud Galili .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Archaeology, University of York, York, United Kingdom

    Geoffrey N. Bailey

  2. Institute of Marine and Coastal Sciences, University of Szczecin, Szczecin, Poland

    Jan Harff

  3. Institute of Oceanography, Hellenic Centre for Marine Research, Anavyssos, Greece

    Dimitris Sakellariou

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Galili, E., Horwitz, L.K., Eshed, V., Rosen, B. (2017). Submerged Pottery Neolithic Settlements off the Coast of Israel: Subsistence, Material Culture and the Development of Separate Burial Grounds. In: Bailey, G., Harff, J., Sakellariou, D. (eds) Under the Sea: Archaeology and Palaeolandscapes of the Continental Shelf. Coastal Research Library, vol 20. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-53160-1_7

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