"The submerged town of Atlit-Yam and the debate between Pisa's INGV and Israel IAA"

THE FATE OF THE ANCIENT SUBMERGED TOWN OF ATLIT-YAM: TSUNAMI TRIGGERED BY ETNA OR SIMPLY RISING OF THE SEA ?
of Ignazio Burgio.

At the end of 2007 the discoverers of the tsunami triggered by Mount Etna all over the East Mediterranean around 8000 years ago (Maria Teresa Pareschi, Enzo Boschi, and Massimiliano Favalli, of the INGV of Pisa), suggested that the submerged ancient town of Atlit-Yam off the Israeli coast was devastated by that disaster. But a few months later the director of Israel Antiquities Authority, Dr. Ehud Galili together with other colleagues, published an official document in which challenged point by point the arguments of Pisans researchers and their motivations. Who among them is right?

giant wave

Since the 80s of last century were discovered and studied off the coast of Israel near Haifa, the ruins of some submerged prehistoric settlements of the Neolithic age. The most famous of them - Atlit-Yam - presents the characteristics of a town populated and well organized (by the standards of the time). It occupied an area of 40 km square, was equipped with wells for water, private and public buildings, stone paved areas, and megalithic ceremonial structures. Its inhabitants - the remains of some of which were found by Israeli divers archaeologists buried under the floor of the houses, as in the Middle East custom at that time – were kept themselves as well as with the first rudimentary forms of agriculture and breeding, but especially with fishing: large quantities of fish were discovered in some warehouses, and they had to be designed not only as a reserve for local consumption, certainly also for trade with the population of hunters in the inland. This very large amount of fish unconsumed seemed inexplicable and could also suggest that the town was suddenly abandoned by its inhabitants.
In December 2006, the researchers of the INGV of Pisa, Maria Teresa Pareschi, Enzo Boschi, and Massimiliano Favalli, made known to the scientific world with an article published in the journal "Geophysical Researchers Letters - "The lost tsunami", (Pareschi, Boschi, Favalli, 2006) - the discovery that approximately 8000 - 7500 years ago, the collapse of the east side of Mount Etna in Ionian Sea generated a catastrophic tsunami that devastated all the Eastern Mediterranean. A few centuries later, the raising sea level at the end of last ice age removed the geological traces of that event.
Few time after the first article, the same researchers of Pisa in the early months of 2007 published on Geophisycal Research Letters another document (“Holocene tsunamis from Mount Etna and the fate of the Israeli Neolithic communities - Pareschi, Boschi, Favalli, 2007) which arrived to the conclusion that Atlit-Yam was struck and devastated by the tsunami and that is suddenly abandoned by the surviving inhabitants. Maria Teresa Pareschi, Enzo Boschi, and Massimiliano Favalli - that shifted the date of the tsunami some century before, setting around 6300 B. C. - based their conclusion on three main topics.
First, were found in the submerged town many skeletons without teeth, some of which seemed to have severe injuries related to traumas; and scattered bones as belonging to individuals overwhelmed and ripped by waves. Were also found numerous bones of animals apparently overwhelmed even them by the tsunami.
Second, a water well inside the town showed sediments composed by debris, bones and other materials compatible with the introduction of animal carcasses, rocks, sand, etc.., dragged by a violent tsunami.
Finally, the large quantity of food unconsumed - fish and grains in particular - suggested, as already mentioned, the sudden abandonment of Atlit-Yam by its terrified inhabitants under a catastrophic event, such as the threat of giant waves.

In April 2008, the same Geophisycal Research Letters published an official document of Ehud Galili and other researchers of the Israeli Archaeological Authority (Galili et al., 2008), in which they criticized point by point the conclusions and the reasons of Pareschi, Boschi and Favalli.
First at all, by the dating with the method of Radiocarbon C14, Atlit-Yam shows an uninterrupted span of life and population from 7400 until the 6000 B. C. So - Israeli researchers say - if the city was abandoned in 6300 B. C. due to the tsunami, they do not understand why there are traces of human activity for another three hundred years. Galili and his colleagues think that the timing of the tsunami proposed by Italian researchers in their first article (between 6000 and 5500 BC) is closer to reality, as also seems to confirm the geological studies of other researchers about that ancient collapse of the Mount Etna.
Moreover, the Israeli researchers have ruled out that the skeletons found among the submerged ruins of the ancient city belonged to people overwhelmed by the giant waves. The damages that they show, according to their pathological analysis, are common diseases in Neolithic populations - even in the inland - such as loss of teeth due to dental caries. The fetal position in which they were commonly found indicates that they were officially buried by their living relatives with funeral rituals, usually under the floor of the houses. Cases of isolated and scattered bones, are then due, according to the same Israeli archaeologists, to subsequent activity of building that involved the underlying remains and scattered them. Numerous animal bones have generally signs of slaughtering, and therefore they would been waste food, and not the remains of animals overwhelmed and buried by a tsunami, because in that case they would been much more intact.
About the remains of animals found inside the well, the Israelis researchers point out as well as in other Neolithic settlements - for example, even those far from the coast - the unused wells were used as landfill waste. So even in this case they would not be remains of animals and materials overwhelmed by waves and flung inside the well, but simple waste food and other material to throw away. Also for the same archaeologists appear inconsistent with the passage of a violent tsunami, the fact that they have been found still standing several structures built without the use of mortar and cement, but simply with the system of overlapped stones: the circular structure of a water well approximately 1.5 meter high, six of the seven menhir of a religious area, several walls of buildings, and so on.
Geologists of the Israel Archaeological Authority dispute finally the direction of arrival of the tsunami assumed by Italian researchers (northeast) and suggest the opposite direction of the northwest, according to the shape of the bay. And assert that the clay layer on which are the submerged ruins, it is not the layer of mud swept by a tsunami, but a pre-existing natural formation that dates back to 10000 - 8000 B. C.

In conclusion, therefore, for Ehud Galili and other researchers of the Israeli Archaeological Authority "... the data indicate that the village was abandoned ca. 8000 years BP due to the gradual post-glacial rise in sea level rise, similar to coastal Neolithic villages all over the world. 8000 years BP due to the gradual post-glacial rise in sea level rise, similar to coastal Neolithic villages all over the world. The site was first covered by coastal sand dunes that protected it from abrasion by marine agents and then submerged by the rising sea. The site was first covered by coastal sand dunes that protected it from abrasion by marine agents and then submerged by the rising sea. Due to the sea level rise, the subsequent PN villages in the region were built farther to the East...” - Galili et alii, 2008, paragraph 12).
However, there remains some perplexity about some findings, and first at all, the large amount of cereals and fish, stored but never consumed, in a time when both the fishing as the first rudimentary techniques of cultivation certainly have to cost effort and work. The Israeli researchers about this problem say only that "... such food concentrations have been reported from terrestrial PPN villages in the southern Levant and represent food stores that had not been consumed ..." - Galili et alii, 2008, paragraph 6), but do not say more. Why that precious food was abandoned at Atlit-Yam (as in the other settlements in the area) along with the whole village if, as Israeli researchers say, the residents decided to leave it in an orderly and peaceful way ? If instead we must think to a sudden and hasty flight, during which the people could not bring anything with them, what other emergency it was, if not the threatening waves of the sea? To be objectives, the question remains open.

Other articles in this site about Atlit-Yam:
- "The fury of the sea's god": the tsunami provoked by Etna 8000 years ago and the submerged town of Atlit-Yam.
- "With eyes to the sky": the submerged town of Atlit-Yam, the enigma of European megaliths and the birth of the celestial religions.

Other articles in English about other arguments: click here.

Bibliography.

M. T. Pareschi, E. Boschi, M. Favalli – Lost tsunami (2006) - in: Geophys. Res. Lett., 33, L22608, doi:10.1029/2006GL027790 - www.agu.org

Pareschi M. T., Boschi E., Favalli M. - Holocene tsunamis from Mount Etna and the fate of Israeli Neolithic communities (2007) - in: Geophys. Res. Lett., 34, L16317, doi:10.1029/2007GL030717 - www.agu.org

Galili, E., L. K. Horwitz, I. Hershkovitz, V. Eshed, A. Salamon, D. Zviely, M. Weinstein-Evron, and H. Greenfield (2008), Comment on ‘‘Holocene tsunamis from Mount Etna and the fate of Israeli Neolithic communities’’ by Maria Teresa Pareschi, Enzo Boschi, and Massimiliano Favalli - in: Geophys. Res. Lett., 35, L08311, doi:10.1029/2008GL033445 - www.agu.org

Israel Antiquities Authority – The pre-pottery neolithic site of Atlit-Yam - in: www.antiquities.org.il (underwater archaeology).

Note. The image comes from the free on line encyclopedia www.wikipedia.org.

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