Dataset Information

A submerged 7000-year-old village and seawall demonstrate earliest known coastal defence against sea-level rise.

ABSTRACT: We report the results of underwater archaeological investigations at the submerged Neolithic settlement of Tel Hreiz (7500 - 7000 BP), off the Carmel coast of Israel. The underwater archaeological site has yielded well-preserved architectural, artefactual, faunal and human remains. We examine and discuss the notable recent discovery of a linear, boulder-built feature >100m long, located seaward of the settlement. Based on archaeological context, mode of construction and radiometric dating, we demonstrate the feature was contemporary with the inundated Neolithic settlement and conclude that it served as a seawall, built to protect the village against Mediterranean Sea-level rise. The seawall is unique for the period and is the oldest known coastal defence worldwide. Its length, use of large non-local boulders and specific arrangement in the landscape reflect the extensive effort invested by the Neolithic villagers in its conception, organisation and construction. However, this distinct social action and display of resilience proved a temporary solution and ultimately the village was inundated and abandoned.

SUBMITTER: Galili E

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6919572 | biostudies-literature | 2019

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Publications

A submerged 7000-year-old village and seawall demonstrate earliest known coastal defence against sea-level rise.

Galili Ehud E Benjamin Jonathan J Eshed Vered V Rosen Baruch B McCarthy John J Kolska Horwitz Liora L

PloS one 20191218 12

We report the results of underwater archaeological investigations at the submerged Neolithic settlement of Tel Hreiz (7500 - 7000 BP), off the Carmel coast of Israel. The underwater archaeological site has yielded well-preserved architectural, artefactual, faunal and human remains. We examine and discuss the notable recent discovery of a linear, boulder-built feature >100m long, located seaward of the settlement. Based on archaeological context, mode of construction and radiometric dating, we de ...[more]

PMID: 31851675

Similar Datasets

Project description:Brachiosauridae is a clade of titanosauriform sauropod dinosaurs that includes the well-known Late Jurassic taxa Brachiosaurus and Giraffatitan. However, there is disagreement over the brachiosaurid affinities of most other taxa, and little consensus regarding the clade's composition or inter-relationships. An unnamed partial sauropod skeleton was collected from middle-late Oxfordian (early Late Jurassic) deposits in Damparis, in the Jura department of eastern France, in 1934. Since its brief description in 1943, this specimen has been informally known in the literature as the 'Damparis sauropod' and 'French Bothriospondylus', and has been considered a brachiosaurid by most authors. If correctly identified, this would make the specimen the earliest known titanosauriform. Coupled with its relatively complete nature and the rarity of Oxfordian sauropod remains in general, this is an important specimen for understanding the early evolution of Titanosauriformes. Full preparation and description of this specimen, known from teeth, vertebrae and most of the appendicular skeleton of a single individual, recognises it as a distinct taxon: Vouivria damparisensis gen. et sp. nov. Phylogenetic analysis of a data matrix comprising 77 taxa (including all putative brachiosaurids) scored for 416 characters recovers a fairly well resolved Brachiosauridae. Vouivria is a basal brachiosaurid, confirming its status as the stratigraphically oldest known titanosauriform. Brachiosauridae consists of a paraphyletic array of Late Jurassic forms, with Europasaurus, Vouivria and Brachiosaurus recovered as successively more nested genera that lie outside of a clade comprising (Giraffatitan + Sonorasaurus) + (Lusotitan + (Cedarosaurus + Venenosaurus)). Abydosaurus forms an unresolved polytomy with the latter five taxa. The Early Cretaceous South American sauropod Padillasaurus was previously regarded as a brachiosaurid, but is here placed within Somphospondyli. A recent study contended that a number of characters used in a previous iteration of this data matrix are 'biologically related', and thus should be excluded from phylogenetic analysis. We demonstrate that almost all of these characters show variation between taxa, and implementation of sensitivity analyses, in which these characters are excluded, has no effect on tree topology or resolution. We argue that where there is morphological variation, this should be captured, rather than ignored. Unambiguous brachiosaurid remains are known only from the USA, western Europe and Africa, and the clade spanned the Late Jurassic through to the late Albian/early Cenomanian, with the last known occurrences all from the USA. Regardless of whether their absence from the Cretaceous of Europe, as well as other regions entirely, reflects regional extinctions and genuine absences, or sampling artefacts, brachiosaurids appear to have become globally extinct by the earliest Late Cretaceous.

Project description:Frugivorous birds play an important role in seed dispersal. Alien plant species' seeds are dispersed by local birds in order to establish populations in new habitats. Alien plant species that produce fruits similar to that of native species have the potential to attract local birds, creating new mutualistic systems that are similar to the local ones. In autumn 2018 and 2019, we studied the seed dispersal systems of an alien plant species, Phytolacca americana, and a native species, Cayratia japonica, in a coastal seawall forest. Both plant species' fruit, frugivorous bird foraging behaviors, seed germination rates, and seedling microhabitats were examined to determine whether the alien species had a similar seed dispersal system to that of the native species. Our results showed that P. americana and C. japonica had similar fruit type, color, and ripening period. There was a positive correlation between the percentage rate of fruit ripening and the percentage rate of fruit missing for both plant species, indicating that local frugivorous birds have the potential to sufficiently disperse the alien seeds to enable its spread in the coastal seawall forest (simple linear regression, P. americana: β = 0.863 ± 0.017, R2 adj = 0.978, P < 0.01; C. japonica: β = 0.787 ± 0.034, R2 adj = 0.898, P < 0.01). Eleven bird species consumed the fruits of the alien species or native species during the study period. Similar results were shown across alien and native species in bird foraging behavior (feeding frequency, feeding duration and first stop distance) indicating that a similar seed dispersal relationship had been established between local frugivorous and both plant species. The alien plant had a higher number of fruits carried by birds, suggesting that P. americana had a slightly higher fruit consumption than that of C. japonica (t-test, P < 0.01). Alien plant seedlings grow more abundant in forest gap microhabitat (t-test, P < 0.01). Our results confirmed that bird digestion promotes seed germination success in both plant species. Our study suggests that in a narrow coastal seawall forest, alien plant species can successfully establish their populations by relying on similar seed dispersal systems as the local species.

Dataset Information

A submerged 7000-year-old village and seawall demonstrate earliest known coastal defence against sea-level rise.

Publications

A submerged 7000-year-old village and seawall demonstrate earliest known coastal defence against sea-level rise.

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

Tweets