45 Journal of The Israel Prehistoric Society 35 (2005), 45-52 Pelecypod Beds Revisited: Glycymeris in Bronze Age Sites DANIELLA E. BAR-YOSEF MAYER Zinman Institute of Archaeology University of Haifa Haifa 31905, Israel FOREWORD Pelecypod beds along the Mediterranean coast of Israel, comprised primarily of Glycymeris sp., were attributed by geologists in the 1960ʼs and 1970ʼs to climatic and geological events. Professor Avraham Ronen demonstrated that these were, in fact, archaeological phenomena. New evidence from inland sites proves him right, and it is my pleasure to dedicate this paper to Professor Ronen. INTRODUCTION The most common bivalve (or pelecypod) species on the beaches of Israel, formerly referred to as G. violacescens (Lamarck 1819), should, in fact, be called G. insubrica (Brocchi 1814). According to Barash and Danin (1992) it is one of four Mediterranean Glycymeris species. In addition we find today in the Mediterranean one Lesepsian migrant (a species that migrated from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean following the construction of the Suez Canal) that is irrelevant to the archaeological record. While Glycymeris is the most abundant shell on the eastern Mediterranean coast today, living specimens have not been found in this area over the last half century (Haas 1951). A living specimen used for dating was collected off Monaco (Neev et al. 1973). Extremely abundant are the shells that accumulate in great quantities on the beaches. In some places the shells form a layer of up to 1 meter thick in the sand dunes of older formations or in red loam (hamra) (Barash and Danin 1992:238, Sivan et al. in press).