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Field Trip Thursday, November 19th

Since the mid-20th century an intensive process of development and industrialization, probably one of the fastest in the eastern Mediterranean has come about along the coast of . However, this has been a region of social activity since ancient times and center for maritime trade and culture along the human history. The field trip will visit key sites along the Carmel coast representing the long and complex history of the region combined with stops at rocky beach sites with abrasion platforms with carbonate vermatides, a unique coastal habitat that its diverse ecological system is endangered by anthropogenic activities.

The field trip will be guided by:  Gil Rilov, Israel Oceanographic and Limnological Research  Dorit Sivan, Department of Maritime Civilizations, Leon H. Charney School of Marine Sciences, and the Leon Recanati Institute for Maritime Studies, University of  Assaf Yasur-Landau, Department of Maritime Civilizations, Leon H. Charney School of Marine Sciences, and the Leon Recanati Institute for Maritime Studies,  Eud Galili, Israel Antiquities Authority and Zinman Institute of Archaeology, University of Haifa

We will leave Nir Etzion at 8:30 and return at sunset. Lunch is planned at a restaurant in the Caesarea ancient port. Bring shoes or sandals for

walking in sea water, shorts and a small towel. If weather permits we will walk on the Vermetid Reefs.

Field trip sites: HaBonim Beach – Vermetid Reef endangered ecology and indicators for sea level changes Abrasion platforms or vermetid reefs are a unique habitat found on the Mediterranean coast of Israel. This ecosystem develops on horizontal rocky surfaces on the coastline, at sea level (the intertidal zone), and is partly constructed by the shells of a sedentary reef-building vermetid gastropod that forms a thick crust over the years which protects the reef from erosion. The 2 vermetid also forms a rim at the seaward edge of the platforms that holds water on the reefs during low tide. These bio-constrictions serve also as excellent sea level change indicators. Observations indicated that the populations of the vermetid have considerably dwindled – a fact that threatens the integrity of the ecosystem – especially in light of climate change including sea level rise, ocean acidification, warming and an increase in extreme weather events.

Tel Dor – An historical gateway between East and West The site is a coastal Tell atop a raised bedrock surface surrounded by abrasion platforms, currently a National Park. The stratigraphy studied around Tel Dor indicates wetlands that existed at the end of the late Pleistocene and were extinct around 10ka years ago. In the close vicinity, on the shallow shelf of the northern Carmel coast, Pre-Poterry Neolithic to Calcolithic sites, now submerged under the sea, were recovered. Only later, around 5ka, sand started to accumulate in the area. Therefore, the early settlers on Tel Dor, at the Early , and mainly during the Middle Bronze age experienced different landscape that affected their every-day life. The archaeology and documented history of Tel Dor (Kh. el-Burj), begins in the Late Bronze Age, and ends in the Crusader period. The "Tel" is a large mound identified with D-jr of Egyptian sources, Biblical Dor, and with Dor/Dora of Greek and Roman sources. Dor was successively ruled by diverse cultures and its primary role was that of a commercial entrepot and a gateway between East and West.

Caesarea National Park - Caesarea is an ancient coastal city surrounded by a Crusader wall and functioning today as a National Park. Settlement at what became Caesarea, on Israel’s central Mediterranean coast began in the third century BCE during the Hellenistic period as a small Phoenician port city called 3

Straton’s Tower. In 90 BCE, the Hasmonean King conquered the city to expand the borders of his kingdom and develop its shipping industry. The population of Straton’s Tower remained Jewish until the Romans conquest in 63 BCE, when the granted the city its freedom. King Herod the Great transformed the city beginning in 22 BCE with the construction of its sophisticated port, warehouses, markets, great streets, bathhouses, temples and magnificent public buildings, naming it Caesarea. Every five years the city hosted gladiatorial games, sports competitions and performances. Caesarea also flourished during the Byzantine period. To the south were extensive farmlands, where cultivation continued through the Early Arab period and apparently until the 11th-century Crusader conquest. Eventually, they were buried by shifting sands.