Dead Sea Once Dry

The Dead Sea was completed dried out about 120,000 years ago, during an arid period in the region. The earliest evidence for anatomically modern humans outside Africa is from around 100,000 years ago. The study took sediment cores from the Dead Sea to depths sufficient to provide a decent continous paleo-climate record from the region for the entire duration of the time that humans have been outside Africa and at least some of the time period during which it was occupied by Neanderthals (who were present in the Near East until about 50,000 years ago give or take a few thousand years, cohabiting the region with modern humans for many thousands of years).