Case File 172-The Younger Dryas

Between 1972 and 1973, in modern-day Syria, archaeologists began an excavation of what they originally thought was an ancient farming village located in the Euphrates valley in an area known as Tell Abu Hureyra. The scientists were surprised to discover that there was another settlement from the Paleolithic era buried underneath the remains of the later settlement. Archaeologists were able to determine that the earlier village had been a society of hunter-gatherers who had perhaps settled in the valley more than 12,000 years ago. Around that same time period is when scientists have studied and determined there had been a dramatic climate shift...