The Environmental Settings of Homo-Sapience Dispersal and the Neolithic Revolution in the Dead Sea – Red Sea Rift Valley

Abstract:

The Dead Sea-Red Sea Rift accommodated climatic and historic events that have fundamentally influenced the evolution of hominids. Among these developments, the Homo-Sapience (HS) dispersal “out of Africa” and the “Neolithic Revolution (NR)” represent major benchmarks. These developments occurred during the last interglacial and the post-glacial periods when the Red Sea - Levant region was overall arid. Nevertheless, wetter intervals prevailed within these arid periods, allowed the human culture development. The information on these wetter periods is stored in the sedimentary archives that were formed in the Rift.

Lake Lisan that expanded all over the Dead Sea- Jordan- Kinnarot basin during the last glacial period retreated and contracted when the ice receded at the northern latitudes. At ~ 14-13 ka BP the lake dropped abruptly and deposited thick sequences of halite. Subsequently, terra rossa soil was re-mobilized from the Judea Mountains and accumulated along the Jordan Valley comprising the Fazael Fm. This soil and the availability of water in the Jordan Valley allow the establishment of the early agriculture settlements of Jericho, Gilgal and Fazael (at ~10-9 ka BP, the “peak” of sapropel S1, when enhance flow of Nile waters arrived to the Mediterranean).

During the last interglacial HS dispersal occurs along the Red Sea- Jordan Valley corridor. Evidence for periods of wetness in this rather hyperarid region comes from fringing coral reefs along the Red Sea- Gulf of Aqaba shores, speleothems and travertines in the southern Negev desert –Arava valley and from lake sediments that were recently drilled at the deepest floor of the Dead Sea. All inventories indicate interval of enhanced wetness at ~ 128-122 ka BP, when sapropel S5 occurred. Thus, it appears that the periods of sapropels S1 and S5 were favorite for human culture development along the Red Sea – Jordan rift valley. Nevertheless, these human-development periods terminated abruptly at ~118-116 ka BP and ~ 8.1 ka BP when extreme arid conditions affected the entire Red Sea-Levant area