One kilometre out in the Mediterranean Sea, near Haifa, Israel, an ancient village lies hidden beneath the waves. It has been so well preserved by the sandy seabed that weevils sit in the grain stores, human skeletons lie undisturbed in their graves, and a mysterious stone circle still stands as it was first erected.
This is Atlit-Yam. The 40,000-square-metre site dates from around 7000 BC, making it one of the earliest 鈥� and largest 鈥� drowned settlements known. There were no organised streets, so the site is described as a village rather than a city, but its people lived in spacious stone houses, complete with paved floors, courtyards, fireplaces, storage facilities and wells.
The site lay buried for 9000 years until quarrying of sand exposed some of the ancient remains. They were spotted in 1984 by Ehud Galili, a marine archaeologist and member of the Israel Prehistoric Society, when he was surveying the area for shipwrecks. Their exposure, however, has put many of the artefacts in grave danger.
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Since 1984, Galili has dived at the site every winter. He waits for storms to shift the sands, then hurries to chart newly visible areas and remove any objects that could be damaged by the sea. 鈥淲e only excavate where there is imminent danger of destruction,鈥� he says.
The site provides unprecedented insight into life in Neolithic times 鈥� when people had just discovered how to domesticate plants and animals. 鈥淚t was the biggest revolution in the history of mankind,鈥� says Galili. Animal bones show that the inhabitants of Atlit-Yam hunted wild animals, but also kept sheep, goats, pigs, dogs and cattle. They grew domesticated wheat, barley, lentil and flax, but were also master fishermen 鈥� bones reveal piles of fish ready for trade or storage. Bone fishhooks were used, but the men also dived for seafood 鈥� four male skeletons have ear damage caused by diving in cold water. Last year, the skeletons of a woman and child even revealed the earliest known cases of tuberculosis (). Human graves were scattered among the houses rather than being in a separate graveyard, and the village had several stone-paved water wells. But most intriguing is a stone semicircle made up of seven 600-kilogram megaliths. 鈥淟ike Stonehenge but smaller,鈥� says Galili. It had a freshwater spring in the middle and cup marks are carved into the slabs, so the monument may have been used for some water ritual.
鈥淢ost intriguing is a stonecircle made of seven megaliths, with a natural spring in the middle and cup marks on the slabs鈥�
At the time, sea levels were still creeping upwards after the last ice age. Galili believes Atlit-Yam鈥檚 wells gradually became contaminated with saltwater 鈥� he found one was used as a rubbish tip in later times. This would have forced people to abandon their homes, and the village was engulfed by sand dunes and then submerged.