Understanding Quaternary variations in water availability in the Near East as a key for future projections of regional environmental change
Final Report Abstract
The environmental and climate conditions during times of human activities in the Levant were reconstructed based on sediments and fossils collected from the Middle Paleolithic archaeological site Nahal Mahanayeem Outlet (NMO: ca. 60 ka), the Lower Paleolithic Gesher Benot Ya’aqov site (GBY: ca. 800 ka), and the Late Upper Paleolithic Ohalo-II site (ca. 24 ka) in Israel. In addition, sediments and fossils from the Lower Paleolithic Nadaouiyeh Aïn Askar site (ca. 500 ka) in Syria were investigated. Results of the analyses of the Early, Middle and Late Pleistocene materials from the Hula Basin in northern Israel (sites NMO and GBY) suggest that environmental conditions were apparently surprisingly stable. A slight temperature reduction was inferred from the fossil ostracod assemblages of GBY. In contrast, significantly colder and drier conditions were inferred from geochemical and micropalaeontological data from Ohalo-II at the Sea of Galilee. A tool for the reconstruction of the conductivity or estimation of salinity of ancient water bodies in the Near East was established based on the ostracod species distribution in modern waters and was applied to fossil ostracod assemblages, and is now available for future analyses.
Publications
-
2010. Quantitative reconstruction of lake conductivity in the Quaternary of the Near East (Israel) using ostracods. Journal of Paleolimnology, 43: 667-688
Mischke, S., Almogi-Labin, A., Ortal, R., Schwab, M.J., Boomer, I.
-
2013. Geological setting and age of the Middle Paleolithic site of Nahal Mahanayeen Outlet (Upper Jordan Valley, Israel). Quaternary International, 331: 139-148
Kalbe, J., Sharon, G., Porat, N., Zhang, C., Mischke, S.
-
2014. An expanded ostracod-based conductivity transfer function for climate reconstruction in the Levant. Quaternary Science Reviews, 93: 91-105
Mischke, S., Almogi-Labin, A., Al-Saqarat, B., Rosenfeld, A., Elyashiv, H., Boomer, I., Stein, M., Lev, L., Ito, E.
-
2014. Ostracod evidence for the Acheulian environment of the ancient Hula Lake (Levant) during the early-mid Pleistocene transition. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, 412: 148-159
Mischke, S., Ashkenazi, S., Almogi-Labin, A., Goren-Inbar, N.
-
2014. Paleohydrology of Lake Kinneret during the Heinrich event H2. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, 396: 183-193
Lev, L., Almogi-Labin, A., Mischke, S., Ito, E., Ben-Avraham, Z., Stein, M.
-
2015. The Middle Palaeolithic Nahal Mahanayeem Outlet Site, Israel: reconstructing the environment of Late Pleistocene wetlands in the Eastern Mediterranean from ostracods. Journal of Archaeological Sciences, 54: 385-395
Kalbe, J., Mischke, S., Dulski, P., Sharon, G.
-
2015. The sub-Recent Bradleytriebella lineata (Ostracoda, Crustacea) in Israel. Journal of Micropalaeontology, 34: 65-70
Mischke, S.
-
2016. The spring of Nadaouiyeh Aïn Askar - Paleoecology of a Paleolithic oasis in arid central Syria. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, 446: 252-262
Kalbe, J., Jagher, R., Pümpin, C.
-
2018. Evidence for climatic changes around the Matuyama-Brunhes Boundary (MBB) inferred from a multi-proxy palaeoenvironmental study of the GBY#2 core, Jordan River Valley, Israel. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, 489: 166-185
Proborukmi, M.S., Mienis, H.K., Dupont Nivet, G., Melamed, Y., Urban, B., Jourdan, F., Mischke, S., Goren-Inbar, N.
-
2018. Pliocene-Pleistocene waterbodies and associated deposits in southern Israel and southern Jordan. Journal of Arid Environments, 148: 14-33
Ginat, H., Opitz, S., Ababneh, L., Faershtein, G., Lazar, M., Porat, N., Mischke, S.
