Beach Deposits Containing Middle Paleolithic Archaeological Remains from Northern Israel
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Quaternary International 464 (2018) 43e57 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Quaternary International journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/quaint Beach deposits containing Middle Paleolithic archaeological remains from northern Israel * Ehud Galili a, b, , Avraham Ronen b, Henk K. Mienis c, Liora Kolska Horwitz c a Israel Antiquities Authority, POB 180, IL 30300 Atlit, Israel b Zinman Institute of Archaeology, University of Haifa, Haifa, IL 31905 Haifa, Israel c National Natural History Collections, Faculty of Life Sciences, The Hebrew University, E. Safra Campus, Jerusalem 9190401, Israel article info abstract Article history: Beach deposits of the last interglacial maximum, MIS 5e, are common on the Mediterranean coasts, Received 20 December 2016 however only a few of them contain archaeological remains. Four beach deposits containing Paleolithic Received in revised form remains were previously identified on the Carmel coast of northern Israel which relate to the MIS 5e sea- 18 April 2017 level high stand of the last interglacial maximum. Here we report on a newly identified outcrop of beach Accepted 3 May 2017 deposit containing archaeological remains from Rosh Haniqra, on the northern Galilee coast, termed the Available online 23 May 2017 Rosh Haniqra railway hill section. This beach deposit is in the form of a tilted lens (12.5 m long and 1.5 m thick) and is composed of seven layers, containing limestone pebbles and cobbles, crushed and whole Keywords: fl fl Persististrombus mollusks marine shells, aked int implements and a mammalian bone, cemented by calcite. While the previously MIS 5e known Carmel coast beach deposits are embedded above or in kurkar deposits (aeolian calcareous Mousterian cemented quartz sandstone), the Rosh Haniqra railway hill beach deposit lies directly on Cretaceous Levallois artifacts bedrock and is overlain by a 5 m-thick layer of kurkar. Based on the typology of the lithic artifacts and Carmel coast their similarity to other Middle and Late Mousterian flint assemblages found in beach deposits and loamy LGM red soils along the northern Israeli coast, the Rosh Haniqra railway hill beach deposit probably dates to Kurkar the MIS 5e high sea stand. However, its attribution to the earlier MIS 7 stage dating to ca. 200 ka, cannot be entirely discounted. Future absolute dating of the deposits may clarify this issue. © 2017 Elsevier Ltd and INQUA. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction first report of an outcrop of BD on the Galilee coast of northern Israel containing archaeological remains attesting to hominin Beach deposits (BD) of the last interglacial maximum, MIS 5e presence. To integrate this new locality with similar BD sites, a brief (ca.134-116 ka BP), have been identified in numerous areas around description of four previously discovered coastal sites containing the world (e.g. Hearty et al., 2007; Rohling et al., 2008; Pedoja et al., osteological remains and flint artefacts on the neighboring Carmel 2011) and are common on the Mediterranean coasts (e.g. Ferranti coast is briefly presented. et al., 2006; Bardaji et al., 2009; Mauz and Antonioli, 2009). Un- The topography of the Carmel and Galilee coasts is made up of derwater and coastal surveys carried out on the Mediterranean longitudinal low kurkar (aeolian calcareous cemented quartz coast of Israel revealed BD relating to the 5e high sea-level stand on sandstone) ridges that run sub-parallel to the present coastline. The both the Carmel and Galilee coasts of northern Israel (Figs. 1 and 2) ridges are separated by troughs filled with reddish clay loam (Galili et al., 2007, 2015; Mauz et al., 2012; Sivan et al., 2016). (Hamra) and sandy Regosols (Gvirtzman et al., 1998; Almagor, However, such deposits containing archaeological remains are rare 2002:148e156, 216e223, 195e213; Singer, 2007). Some of the and were recovered so far on the Red Sea coast of Eritrea (Walter ridges are on land while others are submerged or partly submerged et al., 2000), in Lebanon (Bergy, 1932; Fleisch et al., 1969) and on offshore, creating small islands and reefs. On the Galilee coast the northern Carmel coast (Galili et al., 2007). Here we provide the (Fig. 2: B), there are two coastal Kurkar ridges; the more inland Evron ridge and the Akko ridge on the coastline (Sivan, 1996: 134, map. 17; Sivan et al., 1999), while on the Carmel coast (Fig. 2:C) there are three coastal ridges south of Atlit and one such ridge * Corresponding author. Ehud Galili, POB 180, IL 30300 Atlit, Israel. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (E. Galili), [email protected] north of Atlit (Michelson, 1970). (A. Ronen), [email protected] (H.K. Mienis), [email protected] (L.K. Horwitz). On the northern Carmel coast, ten beach deposit exposures have http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.quaint.2017.05.002 1040-6182/© 2017 Elsevier Ltd and INQUA. All rights reserved. 44 E. Galili et al. / Quaternary International 464 (2018) 43e57 Fig. 1. Location map showing the study area: A-the northern Israeli coast and the location of MIS 5e beach deposit number 11, B- the Galilee coast, C e the Carmel coast. For location of the other beach deposits see Fig. 2. (drawing by E. Galili). been recognized on the kurkar ridge between the Ahuza River and Underlying the Yasaf Member is the Regba Member, which Nahal Me'arot and one in an inland core drill near Kebara Cave, four comprises a sequence of alternating kurkar and Hamra units that of them contained anthropogenic remains (Galili et al., 2007) make up the ridges running sub-parallel to the present coastline. (Table 1:1e11, Figs. 1: A and 2: C). Their elevations vary between According to Sivan (1996) the Regba Member may be up to 16 m 3 m below sealevel up to 9 m above sealevel. They have been thick. It was initially dated by Sivan (Sivan, 1996:74;Sivan et al., attributed to the MIS 5e sea-level high stand of the last interglacial 1999) to the low sea-stand MIS 6a-c, (ca. 130e180 ka BP), but maximum, based on the presence of the warm-water Senegalese recently the top of the Regba kurkar was dated by OSL to 215 ± 22 index mollusk, currently termed Persististrombus latus (previously ka i.e. the high sea-stand MIS 7 (Sivan et al., 2016: 222). Lentigo latus and Strombus bubonius; Taviani, 2014), radiometric The BD on the Galilee coast containing archaeological remains dating methods such as Thorium/Uranium (Th/U), 40Ar/39Ar that is described here, is located on the north side of the Rosh (AAR), red thermoluminescence (RTL) and optically stimulated Haniqra railway hill and is henceforth termed the RH railway hill luminescence (OSL) ages and, in some instances, dating based on BD. We discuss this deposit in relation to previously described lo- the typology of flint artifacts recovered (Frechen et al., 2004; Neber calities with MIS 5e BD known from the Israeli coast containing et al., 2003; Galili et al., 2007; Ronen et al., 2008a, 2008b; Mauz archaeological remains, as well as in the light of current geological et al., 2012, 2013; Porat et al., 2017). and archaeological data pertaining to Middle Paleolithic commu- MIS 5e BD identified on the surface and in core drillings were nities in this coastal region. reported from the Galilee coast on the coastal kurkar ridge (The Akko ridge) and up to 1.5 km inland (Sivan, 1996: 134, map. 17). These BD are termed the Yasaf Member which attains a thickness of 1.1. The geological setting up to 1.5 m and is divided into several sub-units (Sivan, 1996). The Yasaf Member lies at elevations of 7.4 m below sea-level (composed The study area is bordered to the north by the Rosh Haniqra fault of rock made of shells near Akko) and up to 6.5 m above sea-level and mountain range and by the Tanninim River and the Or Aqiva near Rosh Haniqra (Hebrew, meaning Head of the Grottos) where fault to the south. Haifa Bay (and graben) which separates between it is composed of sub-units of gravel-rich conglomerate deposit the Carmel range and the Galilee coast is bordered by the Yagur containing the marine gastropod Persististrombus latus (as Strom- fault on the northern fringes of Mount Carmel to the south, and the e bus), overlain by Vermetidae reef domes, topped by a thick bio- Ahihud fault in the north (Almagor, 2002:213 216) (Figs. 1: A and clastic, coarse sandstone (Sivan et al., 2016). Outcrops of the Yasaf 2). Several transversal faults cross the Galilee coast and continue at Member sub-units bearing Persististrombus shells were also sea (Mero, 1983; Sivan and Galili, 1999; Galili and Eytam, 1988). On observed in Shavey Zion (near the Bet Haemeq stream and south of the Carmel coast, the Atlit fault and Oren River separates between the Shavey Zion settlement), Hazrot Yasaf (near the outlet of the the narrow northern and the wide southern Carmel coasts Yasaf stream) and near Mazra hospital north of the town of Akko (Michelson, 1970; Mart, 1996)(Fig. 2: C). As described above, the (Table 3:11e17, Fig. 2B). The Yasaf Member was dated to MIS 5e due Carmel and Galilee coastal plains are characterized by a series of to the presence of Persististrombus latus and comparison with ma- elongated, sandstone ridges running parallel to the shore. These rine terraces in Lebanon with the same faunal content (Issar, 1968, kurkar ridges are undergoing marine erosion, creating indented, fl 1972; Issar and Kafri, 1969; Sivan, 1996; Sivan et al., 2016). rocky coasts with small bays and at abrasion platforms, up to 25 m wide. In the Carmel and Rosh Haniqra heads, the abrasion platforms Download English Version: https://daneshyari.com/en/article/7450924 Download Persian Version: https://daneshyari.com/article/7450924 Daneshyari.com.