BEFOREtheFLOOD

The goal of our project is to study the relations between environmental change and cultural change in coastal and wetlands ecosystems which were vital to the development of Mediterranean complex societies during the Neolithic period.

Even though coastal societies must have held a significant place in Mediterranean history, many of their earliest trajectories are archaeologically obscure due to a rise in sea levels since the last Ice Age.

In this project, we explore some of the earliest submerged settlements, now found under the Eastern Mediterranean Sea off the Carmel coast. We carry out sediment core drilling, underwater archaeological excavations and microscopic and chemical analysis at the laboratories.