Inundated archaeological sites dating from the Middle Palaeolithic to the Pottery Neolithic periods have been exposed off the Mediterranean coast of Israel, mainly the northern Carmel coast. The bulk of the sites represents in situ Neolithic settlements dating from the tenth to the seventh millennia BP, including the Pre-Pottery Neolithic site of Atlit-Yam and the Pottery Neolithic sites of Kfar Samir, Kfar Galim, Tel Hreiz and Neve-Yam. These are some of the best-preserved underwater settlements in the world with excellent preservation of human and animal remains, plant materials used as food and animal fodder, basketry, wood used in building construction and for making bowls and a wide range of flint, bone and ground-stone artefacts. The sites include rectangular stone dwellings, the earliest known stone-built water wells in the world, megalithic structures of probable ritual significance, numerous human burials, many in stone-lined graves or cists, and reveal details of village layout including a separation between domestic and graveyard areas. The human remains provide pathological evidence for the earliest known case of tuberculosis and for malarial infection. These settlements are the earliest known examples of the typical Mediterranean fishing village, with a subsistence economy based on crop cultivation, domestic animals, some hunting of wild animals, a significant emphasis on marine fishing and the earliest known evidence for the production of olive oil. This combination of resources contributed to the establishment of year-round sedentary, Mediterranean fishing villages. These features owe their preservation and discovery to the location of the settlements on the shoreline. Rising sea level eventually forced their abandonment and sealed the remains in anaerobic conditions under a protective cover of marine sand, until recent disturbance by storms and sand-mining exposed parts of the submerged ancient land surface to archaeological discovery.

The submerged Early Holocene landscape of the Carmel Coast (Israel) has yielded remarkable evidence of Neolithic settlements and their associated material culture, preserved on and within the seafloor. Here, we report on the preliminary documentation of a newly discovered submerged Neolithic site near N. Mearot Inlet, containing series of rectangular clay basins arranged in a grid pattern. Following their initial identification, sediment cores were extracted from the basins and the ramparts around them and analyzed for their pollen, phytoliths, and mineralogical composition; however, more samples are to be taken and the analyses have yet to yield more conclusive results. Comparisons with later case studies suggest that the polygonal cracking of the clay and the basins’ morphology, size, and spatial organization are more consistent with salt evaporation pans, which were operated ca. 7000 years BP, than with plot-and-berm agricultural use, though agricultural use cannot be ruled out entirely.