News and Updates

28-29/05/2025         We organized a conference at the University of Haifa on Public Engagement with Underwater Cultural Heritage. This meeting hosted marine archaeologists, museum curators, social anthropologists, artists and art and cultural producers in order to develop new concepts for presenting the heritage of the coastal Neolithic societies, now lost beneath the sea.

16/12/2024         Prof. David Friesem presented the project at the meeting of 'Archaeo-Diplomacy in Action: UC San Diego and University of Haifa Strengthen Ties Through Marine Archaeology' as part of the collaboration with the Center for Cyber-Archaeology and Sustainability, Qualcom Institute (Photograph showing David presenitng the project to Dr. Irwin Jacobs the co-founder and former chairman of Qualcomm and one of the most generous philanthropist to UCSD).

15-18/12/2024   David visited the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California San-Diego and worked with Dr. Gilad Shtienberg examining new cores taken from Atlit-Yam and Neve-Yam.

24-25/07/2024         Fieldwork to collect new sediment cores aiming to retrieve environmental record off-site the coastal Neolithic villages. First at Atlit and then at Neve-Yam (Photograph showing the UHaifa team from left: Noam [Ecodrill], Roni, Vishal, Gilad [UCSD], Yael, Ehud and Marko).

04/04/2024         Fieldwork at Neve-Yam collecting new cores from the Pottery Neolithic site on the coast 

Top photograph by E. Galili showing Isaac, Roni and Marko with the Geoprobe at the back; Bottom photograph showing Ehud Galili with the team of Ecodrill Ltd. examining the drill.

26/02/2024         Prof. Ehud Galili and Dr. Isaac Ogloblin making significant progress with a new coring method for collecting archaeological sediments underwater (Photograph by E. Galili showing I. Ogloblin).

22/02/2024         More cores have been opened and sampled. We also started to sample for aDNA analysis in order to gain new and exciting information from the earliest coastal settlements and the littoral environment.

31/09/2023         We're thrilled to announce the successful completion of core sampling at our project site for Optically Stimulated Luminescence (OSL) dating. Our team is now gearing up for the next phase of analysis to uncover the site's historical timeline.

14-15/09/2023   Elle Grono presented our micro-archaeology research of Atlit-Yam at the Australasian Institute for Maritime Archaeology (AIMA)-ICUCH conference 'Connected by Water' in Canberra, Australia. It was a wonderful opportunity to place our research in an international perspective and learn about current themes and approaches in underwater archaeology in the Australasian region.

02/07/2023         We begin to cut and impregnate the core sediments for micromorphology analysis! We select core locations based on C14 dating, microarchaeological evidence and core sediment descriptions. The cut sections are dried at room temperature for several days; in an oven overnight at 40’C; impregnated with a polyester-resin mixture; and, left to harden for several weeks before thin-sectioning. We eagerly await the thin sections!

27-30/06/2023   Isaac and Elle attended the Archaeological Soil Micromorphology Workshop (WASM) held in Utrecht University Science Park in Utrecht. We shared thin sections from around the world and discussed site formation processes in wetland and submerged coastal environmental settings. We thank the organisers of the event for a wonderful few days!

19/05/2023 Our new article presents an integrated microarchaeological field and laboratory protocol for investigating deep stratigraphy from submerged archaeological sites. We apply the protocol to pilot sedimentary cores from the Atlit-Yam site. https://doi.org/10.1002/gea.21967

16/12/2022 After extracting pollen using palynological procedures in the laboratory, Elle is currently analyzing pollen grains under the microscope from the first core.

14/12/2022 A month has passed from fieldwork and we have sampled 300 samples from our first core and developed our multiproxy high-resolution sampling protocol.

16/11/2022         Back from the sea with 23 deep sediment cores from Atlit-Yam.

13/11/2022         We are excited to officially start new fieldwork

                                 for BeforeTheFlood! Drilling sediment cores

                                 from Atlit-Yam.

24/10/2022 We are out at sea again! Diving at Atlit-Yam to prepare for drilling sediment cores.

23/10/2022          Meeting at the marine workshop to undertake preparations before fieldwork in the sea!