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Other Archaeological Sites / The Neolithic of the Levant (500 Page Book Online)

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Recent Work in Nubia indicates that the climatic pattern in Egypt was closely related to conditions in the southern Levant during the Würm. The climate there was semi-arid but cooler for much of this period with more available moisture than today. The principal phase of increased moisture took place during the earlier Würm between 50,000 and 25,000 B.P. when substantial beds of gravel and silts were laid down by the increased discharge of the Nile and its tributaries. Thereafter an arid phase ensued, as in the southern Levant, which lasted until about 15,000 BC. This was followed by two moister phases extending well into the Holocene. These phases coincided hith the high level of the Dead Sea that occurred in the Levant at the time of the transition from Pleistocene to Holocene. After 6,000 BC the Egyptian climate became arid and, apart from another moist interval in the 4th millennium BC, it has remained so until today ...

The History of the Ancient Near East Electronic Compendium