A submerged 7000-year-old village and seawall demonstrate earliest known coastal defence against sea-level rise

Ehud Galili, Jonathan Benjamin, Vered Eshed, Baruch Rosen, John McCarthy, Liora Kolska Horwitz

    Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

    Abstract

    We report the results of underwater archaeological investigations at the submerged Neolithic settlement of Tel Hreiz (7500 - 7000 BP), off the Carmel coast of Israel. The underwater archaeological site has yielded well-preserved architectural, artefactual, faunal and human remains. We examine and discuss the notable recent discovery of a linear, boulderbuilt feature >100m long, located seaward of the settlement. Based on archaeological context, mode of construction and radiometric dating, we demonstrate the feature was contemporary with the inundated Neolithic settlement and conclude that it served as a seawall, built to protect the village against Mediterranean Sea-level rise. The seawall is unique for the period and is the oldest known coastal defence worldwide. Its length, use of large non-local boulders and specific arrangement in the landscape reflect the extensive effort invested by the Neolithic villagers in its conception, organisation and construction. However, this distinct social action and display of resilience proved a temporary solution and ultimately the village was inundated and abandoned.

    Original languageEnglish
    Article numbere0222560
    JournalPLoS ONE
    Volume14
    Issue number12
    DOIs
    StatePublished - 1 Dec 2019

    Bibliographical note

    Publisher Copyright:
    © 2019 Galili et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

    ASJC Scopus subject areas

    • General

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