Miryam Bar-Matthews

Geological Survey of Israel · Geochemistry

Identifying communal rituals in the Paleolithic is of scientific importance, as it reflects the expression of collective identity and the maintenance of group cohesion. This study provides evidence indicating the practice of deep cave collective rituals in the Levant during the Early Upper Paleolithic (EUP) period. It is demonstrated that these gat...

Identifying communal rituals in the Paleolithic is of scientific importance, as it reflects the expression of collective identity and the maintenance of group cohesion. This study provides evidence indicating the practice of deep cave collective rituals in the Levant during the Early Upper Paleolithic (EUP) period. It is demonstrated that these gat...

We present new stable oxygen and carbon isotope composite records (δ18O, δ13C) of speleothems from Sandkraal Cave 1 (SK1) on the South African south coast for the time interval between 104 and 18 ka (with a hiatus between 48 and 41 ka). Statistical comparisons using kernel-based correlation analyses and semblance analyses based on continuous wavele...

Available online xxxx Editor: Y. Asmerom Keywords: speleothems rainfall relative humidity triple oxygen isotopes δ 18 O in speleothem carbonates is a common archive for paleoclimate on land. Recently, it has been shown that triple oxygen isotopes in CaCO 3 (given as 17 O excess = 10 6 [ln(10 −3 δ 17 O + 1) − 0.528(ln(10 −3 δ 18 O + 1)]) record 17 O...

There is limited understanding of temperature and atmospheric circulation changes that accompany an Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) slowdown beyond the North Atlantic realm. A Peqi'in Cave (Israel) speleothem dated to the last interglacial period (LIG), 129-116 thousand years ago (ka), together with a large modern rainfall monito...

This study presents oxygen (δ18O) and carbon (δ13C) stable isotope records of two U-Th dated stalagmites from Mljet Island caves in the southern part of Croatian Adriatic. Speleothem MSM-1 from Mala špilja Cave recorded environmental changes during Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 5 (119–101 ka and 91–81 ka BP), MIS 4 (60–54 ka BP), MIS 3 (43–35 ka BP)....

Aim: The geography and genesis of diversity remain an enduring topic in ecology and evolution. Mediterranean Climate Ecosystems (MCEs), with their high plant diversities in winter rainfall climates, pose a challenge to popular hypotheses evoking high water availability and temperature as necessary for the evolution of high diversity. We test the hy...

During the intermediate Islamic period, the settlement of Safed was transformed from a small unknown village in Upper Galilee to an important stronghold and administrative center, aggravating the problem of the town’s water supply. Lacking natural springs, Safed depended on cisterns fed by gutters that channeled seasonal rainwater from the roofs an...

This study demonstrates the feasibility of speleothem magnetism as a paleo-hydrology proxy in speleothems growing in semi-arid conditions. Soil-derived magnetic particles in speleothems retain valuable information on the physicochemical conditions of the overlying soil, and changes in bedrock hydrology. Yet, the link between magnetic and isotopic p...

A fundamental issue in the interpretation of speleothem calcite δ¹⁸Occ records is the correct partitioning of the effects of temperature and water δ¹⁸O variations. This study explores the paleo-environmental evolution of the Eastern Mediterranean Sea (EMS) region using Soreq Cave speleothems in the last 160 ka, a period covering glacial MIS6 to the...

Pinnacle Point (PP) near Mossel Bay in the Western Cape Province, South Africa, is known for a series of archaeological caves with important archaeological finds. Extensive excavations and studies in two of them (PP13B and PP5-6) have documented alternating periods of anthropogenic-dominated and geogenic-dominated sedimentation. A variety of caves...

Vessels made of chalk are common at Jewish sites throughout the southern Levant during the Roman period, apparently because stone was perceived to be impervious to ritual impurity. The present study analyzes samples from settlement and production sites to determine whether distinctive geochemical compositions might relate to specific source locatio...

Sapropels S5 and S7 formed in the semi-enclosed Eastern Mediterranean Sea (EMS) during peak interglacial periods MIS5e and MIS7a, respectively, are considered among the most strongly developed Quaternary sapropels. This study investigates the redox dynamics of the water column during their formation, via Fe isotope and Fe speciation studies of core...

Understanding past human settlement of inhospitable regions is one of the most intriguing puzzles in archaeological research, with implications for more sustainable use of marginal regions today. During the Byzantine period in the 4th century CE, large settlements were established in the arid region of the Negev Desert, Israel, but it remains uncle...

Paleorainfall proxy records from the Middle East have revealed remarkable patterns of variability since the penultimate glacial period (140 ka), but the seasonality of this signal has been unresolvable. Here, seasonal-resolution oxygen isotope data from Soreq Cave speleothems suggest that summer monsoon rainfall periodically reaches as far north as...

The Eastern Mediterranean (EM) - Levant region is the eastern borderland of the Eastern Mediterranean Sea (EMS). The EMS brings Mediterranean climate zones to the immediate coastal region and hinterland, but away from the influence of the EMS, the region rapidly becomes a desert. Paleoclimate evidence derived from a large number of studies on spele...

Genetic and archaeological models predict that African modern humans successfully colonized Eurasia between 60,000 and 40,000 years before present (ka), replacing all other forms of hominins. While there is good evidence for the first arrival in Eurasia around 50-45ka, the fossil record is extremely scarce with regard to earlier representatives. A...

Central Italy has been a cradle of geology for centuries. For more than 100 years, studies at the Umbria and Marche Apennines have led to new ideas and a better understanding of the past, such as the Cretaceous-Paleogene (K-Pg) boundary event, or the events across the Eocene-Oligocene transition from a greenhouse to an icehouse world. The Umbria-Ma...

Although quantitative isotope data from speleothems has been used to evaluate isotope-enabled model simulations, currently no consensus exists regarding the most appropriate methodology through which to achieve this. A number of modelling groups will be running isotope-enabled palaeoclimate simulations in the framework of the Coupled Model Intercom...

Given the steep present-day climatic gradients in southern South Africa, comparative studies of its coastal and inland paleoclimate provide important insight into the region's spatial climate dynamics. We present a comparative study of new speleothem stable oxygen (d18O) and carbon (d13C) isotopic composition from Efflux Cave (EC; 113e19 ka, hiatus...

d 13 C d 18 O Speleothems a b s t r a c t Early Ahmarian, Levantine Aurignacian and Post-Levantine Aurignacian archeological assemblages show that the karstic Manot Cave, located 5 km east of the Mediterranean coast in the Western Galilee region of Israel, was intensively occupied during the Early Upper Paleolithic. The coexistence of these rich ar...

Present-day Mediterranean deep-waters are well oxygenated, but the episodic formation of organic-rich sediments (sapropels) indicates that this pattern was frequently perturbed in the past. Both high export productivity and disruption of the thermohaline circulation, leading to reduced deep-water ventilation, have been proposed to account for sapro...

In the study we present results of stable isotope analysis (δ¹⁸O, δ¹³C) of two stalagmites (SPD-1 and SPD-2) from Strašna peć Cave, situated on Dugi otok Island in the Central Adriatic region. The growth interval of the speleothems based on U-Th dating covers the period from 4.4 ka to 1.5 ka. Both speleothems show frequent δ¹⁸O and δ¹³C fluctuation...

Our original claim, based on three independent numerical dating methods, of an age of ~185,000 years for the Misliya-1 modern human hemi-maxilla from Mount Carmel, Israel, is little affected by discounting uranium-series dating of adhering crusts. It confirms a much earlier out-of-Africa Homo sapiens expansion than previously suggested by the consi...

Highly resolved, well-dated paleoclimate records from the southern South African coast are needed to contextualize the evolution of the highly diverse extratropical plant communities of the Greater Cape Floristic Region (GCFR) and to assess the environmental impacts on early human hunter-gatherers. We present new speleothem stable oxygen and carbon...

This study provides a detailed reconstruction of the paleoenvironmental conditions that prevailed during one of the periods of modern human migration out of Africa and their occupation of the Eastern Mediterranean-Levant during the Late Middle Paleolithic-Early Upper Paleolithic. Tracing the past vegetation and climate within the Eastern Mediterran...

Earliest modern humans out of Africa Recent paleoanthropological studies have suggested that modern humans migrated from Africa as early as the beginning of the Late Pleistocene, 120,000 years ago. Hershkovitz et al. now suggest that early modern humans were already present outside of Africa more than 55,000 years earlier (see the Perspective by St...

To date, the earliest modern human fossils found outside of Africa are dated to around 90,000 to 120,000 years ago at the Levantine sites of Skhul and Qafzeh. A maxilla and associated dentition recently discovered at Misliya Cave, Israel, was dated to 177,000 to 194,000 years ago, suggesting that members of the Homo sapiens clade left Africa earlie...

An archaeological site is an integral part of its surrounding landscape. This is one of the main novel approaches in the long-term archaeological project of Tell es-Sâfi/Gath. The site has interacted with its surrounding for more than three thousand years. It was impacted by the ancient environment, but also had an impact on both the ancient enviro...

This study presents high resolutionoxygen and carbon isotopic record of two U-Th dated stalagmites from the Eastern Adriatic caves. The stalagmites were collected from Mala špilja and Velika špilja caves situated on Mljet Island in the southern part of the Croatian Adriatic. Dripwater samples were collected from Medvjeđa špilja, Strašna peć, Špilja...

Speleothems from Ashalim Cave, located in the arid central Negev Desert, Israel, were used in a reconstruction of the palaeoclimate of the northern Saharan-Arabian desert margin. The sequence of speleothems is composed of three stratigraphic members: the yellow Pliocene Basal Member, the brown Early Pleistocene Intermediate Member and the thin Midd...

The timing of archeological industries in the Levant is central for understanding the spread of modern humans with Upper Paleolithic traditions. We report a high-resolution radiocarbon chronology for Early Upper Paleolithic industries (Early Ahmarian and Levantine Aurignacian) from the newly excavated site of Manot Cave, Israel. The dates confirm t...

The climate factor has become a focus of much historical and archaeological investigation, encouraged recently by improvements in palaeoclimatic techniques and interest in global climate change. This article examines correlations between climate and history in the Byzantine southern Levant (c. 4th-7th centuries AD). A proposed 5th century economic...

Redox conditions and the mechanisms of redox development are a critical aspect of Eastern Mediterranean sapropels, whose formation in oxygen-depleted waters is closely related to water column stratification at times of global sea level rise and insolation maxima. Sapropels in the Nile Fan formed at relatively shallow water depths under the influenc...

We present the first record covering several consecutive years of the stable isotopic composition of oxygen and hydrogen in rainfall (δ18O and δD) from the year-round rainfall zone on the south coast of South Africa. The dataset includes 140 daily rainfall samples collected between January 2009 and December 2012 (excluding May/June 2012), and a pre...

Diagenesis and epigenetic remobilization frequently obscure the original depositional environment of sediments that have been affected by Cu- Mn- mineralization. Such is the case for the sedimentary Cu and Mn ores of the Cambrian Timna Formation in Southern Israel, where different interpretations of field, petrographic and geochemical data have led...

Abstract The δ18O and δ13C records of a 230Th/U dated, 2.2-m long stalagmite from Fengyu Cave in south China provide a continuous decadal-resolution (with 3698 measurements) proxy for regional climatic and environmental conditions during 4–65 ka. This single stalagmite reveals all Heinrich cold events, most Dansgaard-Oeschger warm events, deglaciat...

Terrestrial chemical weathering of silicate minerals is a fundamental component of the global cycle of carbon and other elements. Past changes in temperature, rainfall, ice cover, sea-level and physical erosion are thought to affect weathering but the relative impact of these controls through time remains poorly constrained. This problem could be a...

Speleothems can provide extremely high-resolution records of changes in both climate and atmospheric composition. These records have the potential to be used to document regional changes in mean climate and climate variability on annual to centennial timescales. They can also be used to refine our understanding of regional changes in climate forcin...

Two underground cavities in the Northern Calabria region, the Romito and the San Paolo caves, have been selected for speleoseismic analysis in order to provide a timeframe for paleoearthquakes which have shocked the cave sites and the surrounding area. The caves are positioned in a seismogenically active region, which has been struck by medium to l...

A salvage excavation at the Lower Paleolithic site of Kefar Menahem West in the interior of the Israeli coastal plain yielded a flake industry devoid of handaxes and their byproducts. The archeological finds covering an area exceeding 2000 m 2 , are found at the contact of two distinct sedimentological units: Quartzic Brown and hamra (red clay loam...

The isotopic composition of precipitation ( ) is one of the most widely used and informative terrestrial paleoclimate proxies. integrates a series of hydrological processes; therefore, any interpretation of paleohydrology using requires a thorough understanding and quantification of the full hydrological cycle. In this paper, we use modern data to...

This work presents a statistical reconstruction of average mid-winter (DJF) temperature in Jerusalem since 1750. It is a first comprehensive attempt to reconstruct the temperature in Jerusalem, as a good representation of the Eastern Mediterranean (EM) climate. This representativeness is verified here. The data has been reconstructed by using a sta...

Speleothem laminae preserve climate information transferred to the cave via dripwater. High spatial resolution methods allow in situ measurement of geochemical and isotopic proxies at seasonal resolution. Existing hydro-geochemical calibration models suggest that high rainfall inhibits karst water chemical evolution, resulting in low δ18O values, a...

An archaeological site is an integral part of its surrounding landscape, rather than an isolated island. A study of the sediment record in the vicinity of a site (off-site record) can serve as an archive of the ancient landscape history and provide information about the interaction between the environmental process and human activities. There are t...

This paper explores the possible links between rapid climate change (RCC) and social change in the Near East and surrounding regions (Anatolia, central Syria, southern Israel, Mesopotamia, Cyprus and eastern and central Sahara) during the ‘long’ 4th millennium (~4500e3000) BC. Twenty terrestrial and 20 marine climate proxies are used to identify lo...

Three underground cavities in the northern Calabria region have been selected for speleoseismic analysis. Deformed speleothems as well as collapsed stalagmites were observed and sampled in the Romito and the S. Paolo caves in the Pollino Range area, and in the Monaca cave in the Catena Costiera. Deformed carbonate speleothems were sampled and dated...

Paleoanthropologists (scientists studying human origins) universally recognize the evolutionary significance of ancient climates and environments for understanding human origins. Even those scientists working in recent phases of human evolution, when modern humans evolved, agree that hunter-gatherer adaptations are tied to the way that climate and...

A key event in human evolution is the expansion of modern humans of African origin across Eurasia between 60 and 40 thousand years (kyr) before present (bp), replacing all other forms of hominins. Owing to the scarcity of human fossils from this period, these ancestors of all present-day non-African modern populations remain largely enigmatic. Here...

This review discusses the paleowater availability in the Middle East and North Africa. The region is located at the geographical meeting of Eurasia, Africa, the Mediterranean Sea, the Red Sea, and the Indian Ocean, and at the boundary between high- to mid-latitude and tropical–subtropical climate systems. The eastern Mediterranean Sea moderates the...

Soreq (Israel) and Corchia (central Italy) Caves are located 2500 km far apart along the Mediterranean winter-storm track and are ideally suited for investigating past variations of winter rainfall in the Mediterranean region. Analyses of speleothem δ18O records from both caves for the period between ca. 7 to 4 ka BP show some striking similarities...

A new approach for dating ancient quarries is applied to shed new light on the problem of calcite-alabaster provenance in the southern Levant. Until now, calcite-alabaster artifacts from this region were commonly attributed to Egyptian sources. This raw material was used for the production of luxury vessels as well as high-class architectural eleme...

There is growing evidence that speleothem calcite grows out of isotopic equilibrium with cave drip water, with clumped isotope analysis providing a sensitive indicator for disequilibrium. This disequilibrium is primarily the result of CO2 degassing from a thin film of water, leading to irreversible 13C enrichment and reversible 18O enrichment and Δ...

Redox exerts a critical control on organic carbon-rich sedimentation. This is particularly true for Eastern Mediterranean sapropels where seawater stratification is regarded as a major driving force for oxygen depletion, but in which sulphidic (euxinic) bottom waters occur only sporadically. Here we apply a powerful array of geochemical proxies (Fe...

The “younger fill” phenomenon defined by Vita-Finzi, related to sediments that were deposited in many Mediterranean valleys, has been a topic of discussion for several decades. The main challenge regarding this issue is deciphering the origin of the fill: geomorphic processes induced by natural climatic, or by anthropogenic activity. The current re...

Seasonal signals are transmitted to speleothems via the quantity, chemistry and isotopic composition of dripping water in caves. Modern techniques allow seasonality to be interpreted through variations in trace elements, stable isotopes, and organic fluorescence within annual layers.

We present stable isotope data (δ18O, δ13C) from a detrital rich stalagmite from Kapsia Cave, the Peloponnese, Greece. The cave is rich in archeological remains and there are reasons to believe that flooding of the cave has directly affected humans using the cave. Using a combination of U–Th and 14C dating to constrain a site-specific correction fa...