18
The Historical Background
inf/ow
o .
• .!I!!!!"•
I
a
Fig. 7 a and b. Scheme of inversion of currents in Pleistocene Mediterranean (from Benson
and Sylvester-Bradley, 1971)
presumably warm-water species. Only after the "Pre-Tyrrhenian faunal break"
(Zeuner, 1959) did the situation change. During the third (Riss) glaciation, or
possibly during the second, the paleomediterraneans were exterminated. Therefore in the following interglacial a warm-water fauna of different origin appeared.
This was the typical Tyrrhenian fauna characterized by the snail Strombus bubonius and its associates, which are today restricted to the "Senegalian" province, the
subtropical shores ofWestern Africa.
Turning now to the particular case of the Eastern Mediterranean, many questions must be raised.
Zeuner (1959) found a nice sequence of high Pleistocene shorelines in Arabs
Gulf, west of Alexandria: ten high beaches from 103 m to less than 5 m. High
shorelines were found by Wetzel and Haller (1945), also in the Lebanon, as high as
20 m. However it would be very risky to rely only on eustatic sea level fluctuations
in this area.
According to Blanc (1969), the tectonic rise of Rhodes occurred only in PostCalabrian times-towards the end of the Lower Pleistocene. The downthrust
movements in the J ordan-Dead Sea Rift Valley were very active during the earlier
stages of the Pleistocene. Reiss et al. (1971) admit a "further deepening of the
warm sea" i.e. a tectonic movement as opposed to eustatic movement, as late as
the last Glacial/post Glacial boundary, 12,000 years ago.
Furthermore, it is difficult to correlate Eastern Mediterranean high shore
levels with the historical phases ofthe Western Mediterranean, since the "Celtic"
cold-water, or better, low salinity association is not represented in the Eastern
Mediterranean. There is only one isolated find of Arctica islandica from Rhodes
(Zaccaria, 1968). Chlamys septemradiata is known from the Aegean Sea (Mars and
Picard, 1958) (Fig. 5).
The Tyrrhenian warm-water complex is, however, better documented in the
Eastern Mediterranean and Strombus bubonius was also found at Rosh Haniqra
(Israel), at a + 5 m level (Moshkovitz, 1968) (Fig. 6).
The Historical Background
inf/ow
o .
• .!I!!!!"•
I
a
Fig. 7 a and b. Scheme of inversion of currents in Pleistocene Mediterranean (from Benson
and Sylvester-Bradley, 1971)
presumably warm-water species. Only after the "Pre-Tyrrhenian faunal break"
(Zeuner, 1959) did the situation change. During the third (Riss) glaciation, or
possibly during the second, the paleomediterraneans were exterminated. Therefore in the following interglacial a warm-water fauna of different origin appeared.
This was the typical Tyrrhenian fauna characterized by the snail Strombus bubonius and its associates, which are today restricted to the "Senegalian" province, the
subtropical shores ofWestern Africa.
Turning now to the particular case of the Eastern Mediterranean, many questions must be raised.
Zeuner (1959) found a nice sequence of high Pleistocene shorelines in Arabs
Gulf, west of Alexandria: ten high beaches from 103 m to less than 5 m. High
shorelines were found by Wetzel and Haller (1945), also in the Lebanon, as high as
20 m. However it would be very risky to rely only on eustatic sea level fluctuations
in this area.
According to Blanc (1969), the tectonic rise of Rhodes occurred only in PostCalabrian times-towards the end of the Lower Pleistocene. The downthrust
movements in the J ordan-Dead Sea Rift Valley were very active during the earlier
stages of the Pleistocene. Reiss et al. (1971) admit a "further deepening of the
warm sea" i.e. a tectonic movement as opposed to eustatic movement, as late as
the last Glacial/post Glacial boundary, 12,000 years ago.
Furthermore, it is difficult to correlate Eastern Mediterranean high shore
levels with the historical phases ofthe Western Mediterranean, since the "Celtic"
cold-water, or better, low salinity association is not represented in the Eastern
Mediterranean. There is only one isolated find of Arctica islandica from Rhodes
(Zaccaria, 1968). Chlamys septemradiata is known from the Aegean Sea (Mars and
Picard, 1958) (Fig. 5).
The Tyrrhenian warm-water complex is, however, better documented in the
Eastern Mediterranean and Strombus bubonius was also found at Rosh Haniqra
(Israel), at a + 5 m level (Moshkovitz, 1968) (Fig. 6).