Nahal Amud ( he, נחל עמוד), also known as the Wadi al-Amud, is a
stream in the
Upper Galilee
The Upper Galilee ( he, הגליל העליון, ''HaGalil Ha'Elyon''; ar, الجليل الأعلى, ''Al Jaleel Al A'alaa'') is a geographical-political term in use since the end of the Second Temple period. It originally referred to a mounta ...
region of
Israel
Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...
that flows into the
Sea of Galilee.
History
The source of the stream, Ramat Dalton, is located 800 meters above sea level. Its
drainage basin
A drainage basin is an area of land where all flowing surface water converges to a single point, such as a river mouth, or flows into another body of water, such as a lake or ocean. A basin is separated from adjacent basins by a perimeter, ...
includes the peaks of
Mount Canaan (955 meters) and
Mount Meron
Mount Meron ( he, הַר מֵירוֹן, ''Har Meron''; ar, جبل الجرمق, ''Jabal al-Jarmaq'') is a mountain in the Upper Galilee region of Israel. It has special significance in Jewish religious tradition and parts of it have been decla ...
(1,204 meters) and flows south through eastern Galilee to the northwest part of the Sea of Galilee – a height of less than 200 meters below
sea level
Mean sea level (MSL, often shortened to sea level) is an average surface level of one or more among Earth's coastal bodies of water from which heights such as elevation may be measured. The global MSL is a type of vertical datuma standardise ...
.
The stream is named after a
pillar
A column or pillar in architecture and structural engineering is a structural element that transmits, through compression, the weight of the structure above to other structural elements below. In other words, a column is a compression member. ...
that rises high above ground and is located near a channel of the stream near Kibbutz
Hukok
Hukok ( he, חוּקוֹק) is a kibbutz in Israel. Located near the Sea of Galilee and the cities of Tiberias and Safed, it falls under the jurisdiction of Emek HaYarden Regional Council. In it had a population of .
History
In 1945, the Hukok ...
. The gorge that forms the channel at this point holds many caves once inhabited by ''
Homo heidelbergensis
''Homo heidelbergensis'' (also ''H. sapiens heidelbergensis''), sometimes called Heidelbergs, is an extinct species or subspecies of archaic human which existed during the Middle Pleistocene. It was subsumed as a subspecies of '' H. erectus'' i ...
'' and later by
Neanderthal Man
Neanderthals (, also ''Homo neanderthalensis'' and erroneously ''Homo sapiens neanderthalensis''), also written as Neandertals, are an extinct species or subspecies of archaic humans who lived in Eurasia until about 40,000 years ago. While the ...
such as the cave at
Zuttiyeh and the
Amud cave
Amud Cave is located in the Upper Galilee, in the Nahal Amud gorge. It is situated about above Nahal Amud, right next to and above the famous pillar (amud, in Hebrew) for which Nahal Amud is named. The cave was excavated by a Japanese expediti ...
. They were the object of the first
paleoanthropological excavations in
Mandatory Palestine
Mandatory Palestine ( ar, فلسطين الانتدابية '; he, פָּלֶשְׂתִּינָה (א״י) ', where "E.Y." indicates ''’Eretz Yiśrā’ēl'', the Land of Israel) was a geopolitical entity established between 1920 and 1948 ...
in 1925–1926. The caves contained
hominin
The Hominini form a taxonomic tribe of the subfamily Homininae ("hominines"). Hominini includes the extant genera ''Homo'' (humans) and '' Pan'' (chimpanzees and bonobos) and in standard usage excludes the genus ''Gorilla'' (gorillas).
The ...
remains as well as
Mousterian
The Mousterian (or Mode III) is an archaeological industry of stone tools, associated primarily with the Neanderthals in Europe, and to the earliest anatomically modern humans in North Africa and West Asia. The Mousterian largely defines the l ...
and
Acheulean
Acheulean (; also Acheulian and Mode II), from the French ''acheuléen'' after the type site of Saint-Acheul, is an archaeological industry of stone tool manufacture characterized by the distinctive oval and pear-shaped "hand axes" associated ...
artifacts.
Most of Nahal Amud (8923
dunams) was declared a nature reserve in 1972.
See also
*
Geography of Israel
The geography of Israel is very diverse, with desert conditions in the south, and snow-capped mountains in the north. Israel is located at the eastern end of the Mediterranean Sea in Western Asia. It is bounded to the north by Lebanon, the nort ...
*
Hiking in Israel
Hiking is important in Israel, with over 9,656 km (6,000 miles) of trails. In May 2015, Google Street View, in cooperation with the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel (SPNI), announced plans to photograph the full length of the ...
*
Archaeology of Israel
The archaeology of Israel is the study of the archaeology of the present-day Israel, stretching from prehistory through three millennia of documented history. The ancient Land of Israel was a geographical bridge between the political and cultu ...
*
Amud 1
Amud 1 is a nearly complete but poorly preserved adult Southwest Asian Neanderthal skeleton thought to be about 55,000 years old. It was discovered at Amud in Israel by Hisashi Suzuki in July 1961, who described it as male. With an estimated h ...
References
External links
Amud stream @ eretz.com
Rivers of Israel
Nature reserves in Israel
Archaeological sites in Israel
Prehistoric sites in Israel
Protected areas of Northern District (Israel)
Neanderthal sites
Sea of Galilee
Galilee
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