Atlit-Yam

Atlit-Yam was a neolithic settlement about 8,000 years old off the Carmel coast in Israel, about 15km south of Haifa. It's located between 200-400m out to sea and at a depth of up to 12m. The remains of Atlit-Yam cover an area of about 40,000 square metres and include seven stone megaliths at a ritual site (six of them still upright), stone water wells, stone walls, foundations for rectangular buildings, paved areas and burials sites.

Sixty-five human skeletons have been found at the site, some of which showed signs of inner-ear disease caused by diving in cold water. Animal remains at the site include many types of fish bones, wild animals and some, such as cattle, which were semi-domesticated. Atlit-Yam is the earliest known site on the Levantine coast that shows a society based on agriculture, domesticated animals and marine hunting. It would have been a complex economy, using diverse resources for survival.

This would have come to an end possibly due to a rise in sea levels or after the destruction of a major tsunami, which could have left Atlit-Yam many metres below the surface. Nearby are five other submerged neolithic settlements from the Wadi Rabah culture.