Possible Evidence for Sea Salt Production by Solar Evaporation at a Newly Discovered Submerged Neolithic Site off the Carmel Coast, Israel

The submerged Early Holocene landscape of the Carmel Coast (Israel) has yielded remarkable evidence of Neolithic settlements and their associated material culture, preserved on and within the seafloor. Here, we report on the preliminary documentation of a newly discovered submerged Neolithic site near N. Mearot Inlet, containing series of rectangular clay basins arranged in a grid pattern. Following their initial identification, sediment cores were extracted from the basins and the ramparts around them and analyzed for their pollen, phytoliths, and mineralogical composition; however, more samples are to be taken and the analyses have yet to yield more conclusive results. Comparisons with later case studies suggest that the polygonal cracking of the clay and the basins’ morphology, size, and spatial organization are more consistent with salt evaporation pans, which were operated ca. 7000 years BP, than with plot-and-berm agricultural use, though agricultural use cannot be ruled out entirely.