Atlit-Yam appears to be a one-phase settlement, with a brief occupation time before the sea’s incursion, which led to its abandonment approximately 6300 BC.
Atlit-Yam is a submerged Neolithic settlement off Israel’s Atlit coast.
Atlit Yam, a submerged Neolithic hamlet off the coast of Atlit in modern-day Israel, is located off the shore of the village of Atlit.
The site dates from 6900 to 6300 BC, is about 10 meters below present sea level, and encompasses 40,000 square meters.
At the onset of the Holocene, tectonic shifting and climatic changes caused marshes along the Israeli coastal plain to dry up. During the Pre-Pottery Neolithic (PPNB) and later Pottery Neolithic Periods, Neolithic peoples populated the reclaimed ground along the retreating shoreline until a eustatic rise in ocean sea levels drowned the ancient villages to a depth of 8-12 meters beneath the surface.
Around 6900 BC, Atlit Yam was colonized, and the inhabitants subsisted on agro-pastoral-marine sustenance.
According to scientists, Atlit-Yam was abruptly abandoned due to a tsunami that rocked the region, most likely caused by a volcanic eruption in the Mediterranean.
The discovery of two remains, one of a lady and the other of a kid, piqued archaeologists’ curiosity because they revealed the earliest known tuberculosis cases.
