Late quaternary environmental history of the southern Levant

Abstract

The Late Quaternary history of northern Sinai and the western Negev is inferred from a number of stratigraphic sequences rich in prehistoric and archaeologic remains. Exposures are abundant along the wadi courses which drain the highlands westward to the Mediterranean. Earliest deposition is represented by coarse, well rounded gravels containing Middle Paleolithic artifacts and is dated to ca. 90,000 to 70,000 B.P. These are overlain by finer grained sands, silts, and clays, ultimately of eolian origin, but re‐deposited by low energy stream flows under marshy conditions. These contain in situ Upper Paleolithic (ca. 40,000 to 22,000 B.P.) and Epi‐Paleolithic (ca. 15,000 to 12,000 B.P.) sites; commonly an erosional phase (ca. 22,000 to 15,000 years ago) separates the two groups of industries. In areas closer to the coast, temporally equivalent deposits are predominantly sandy, reflecting their proximity to the source in western and northern Sinai. The Holocene is generally characterized by downcutting but deposition of fluviatile and eolian silts is well documented during the Chalcolithic (ca. 6,000 B.P.). The last depositional event is the accumulation of 3–4 m of fluviatile silts containing Byzantine artifacts and radiocarbon dated between ca. 1750–600 B.P.). Whereas most of the sequences can be explained in climatic terms, the Byzantine or “Historical Fill” may have an anthropogenic origin.

Significance of primary hilltop loess in reconstructing dust chronology, accretion rates, and sources: An example from the Negev Desert, Israel

“…In earlier work, this was due to a lack of datable material by the methods then available, or to the use of methods that are not appropriate for determining ages of the loess deposits or paleosols [Enzel et al, 2008]. The published chronologies and the rates of dust accretion and erosion that have been inferred from them are based heavily on stratigraphic relations and association with human artifacts, and on radiocarbon analyses of pedogenic calcic nodules [e.g., Yaalon and Dan, 1974;Horowitz, 1979;Issar and Bruins, 1983;Enzel, 1984;Issar et al, 1984;Gerson et al, 1985;Goldberg, 1986;Magaritz, 1986;Gerson and Amit, 1987;Yair and Enzel, 1987;Goodfriend and Magaritz, 1988;Zilberman, 1992;Ben David, 2003]. Only recently have reliable optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) ages been reported for the late Pleistocene loess of the Negev [Avni et al, 2006], but even these ages are on reworked, secondary fluvial loess and not primary loess.…”

The Ahmarian tradition of the Levantine Upper Paleolithic: the environment of the archaeology

“…This in part is supported by the isotopic composition of fossil snails (Margaritz, 1986). The geomorphic and sedimentary records, however, indicate that this interval was somewhat wetter (Goldberg, 1986) characterized by alluvial aggradation in the Negev during the earlier half (Goldberg and Brimer, 1983) and by soil development (Goodfriend and Margaritz, 1988).…”

“…In the central Negev, for example, Goldberg (1986) observed that Nahals Sekker and Besor preserve a sequence of continuous aggradation in the Late Pleistocene, rather than hemicycles of cut-fill. Bull and Schick (1979), working in the southern Negev, concluded that sediment yields and alluviation increased under hyperarid conditions late in the Pleistocene and that subsequent entrenchment occurred in the Holocene.…”

“…The reconstruction of late Quaternary environments in northern Sinai and the southern Levant is based on the interpretation of alluvial fills (Goldberg, 1986;Goldberg and Bar-Yosef, 1995). In the upper reach of Wadi Qudeirat in northeastern Sinai, discrete bodies of sediment, separated by protracted periods of erosion and downcutting, have been recognized.…”

Landforms, sediments, soil development, and prehistoric site settings on the Madaba‐Dhiban Plateau, Jordan

“…A revision of Vita-Finzi's original model included a more complex chronology based on four alluvial fills (Copeland and Vita-Finzi, 1978), although it still proved too simplified to apply to all Jordanian wadis. Criticism of this model arose in several regions of the Mediterranean as more accurate dating suggested more complex fluvial histories (Goldberg, 1986;Van Andel et al, 1990;Mabry, 1992;Schuldenrein and Clark, 1994;Grove, 1997).…”