At Abu Hureyra (AH), Syria, the 12,800-year-old Younger Dryas boundary layer (YDB) contains peak abundances in meltglass, nanodiamonds, microspherules, and charcoal. AH meltglass comprises 1.6 wt.% of bulk sediment, and crossed polarizers indicate that the meltglass is isotropic. High YDB concentrations of iridium, platinum, nickel, and cobalt suggest mixing of melted local sediment with small quantities of meteoritic material. Approximately 40% of AH glass display carbon-infused, siliceous plant imprints that laboratory experiments show formed at a minimum of 1200°-1300 °C; however, reflectance-inferred temperatures for the encapsulated carbon were lower by up to 1000 °C. Alternately, melted grains of quartz, chromferide, and magnetite in AH glass suggest exposure to minimum temperatures of 1720 °C ranging to >2200 °C. This argues against formation of AH meltglass in thatched hut fires at 1100°-1200 °C, and low values of remanent magnetism indicate the meltglass was not created by lightning. Low meltglass water content (0.02-0.05% H2O) is consistent with a formation process similar to that of tektites and inconsistent with volcanism and anthropogenesis. The wide range of evidence supports the hypothesis that a cosmic event occurred at Abu Hureyra ~12,800 years ago, coeval with impacts that deposited high-temperature meltglass, melted microspherules, and/or platinum at other YDB sites on four continents.

Armagh Observatory and Planetarium College Hill Armagh BT61 9DG Northern Ireland UK

Center for Advanced Materials Characterization at Oregon University of Oregon Eugene OR 97403 USA

College of Liberal Arts Rochester Institute of Technology Rochester NY 14623 USA

Comet Research Group 2204 Lakewood Drive Prescott AZ 86301 USA

Department of Earth Science and Marine Science Institute University of California Santa Barbara Santa Barbara CA 93106 USA

Department of Natural Sciences Elizabeth City State University Elizabeth City NC 27909 USA

Elizabeth City State University Center of Excellence in Remote Sensing Education and Research Elizabeth City NC 27909 USA

Geology Division School of Earth and Sustainability Northern Arizona University Flagstaff AZ 86011 USA

Institute of Geology Czech Academy of Science of the Czech Republic and Charles University Faculty of Science Czech Republic CZE; and University of Alaska Fairbanks 903 Koyukuk Drive Fairbanks Alaska 99775 USA

Leverhulme Research Centre for Functional Materials Design The Materials Innovation Factory Department of Chemistry University of Liverpool Liverpool UK

Los Alamos National Laboratory White Rock NM 87547 USA

U S Geological Survey 12201 Sunrise Valley Drive Reston VA 20192 USA

Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering Harvard University Cambridge MA 02138 USA

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Shocked quartz at the Younger Dryas onset (12.8 ka) supports cosmic airbursts/impacts contributing to North American megafaunal extinctions and collapse of the Clovis technocomplex

A 12,800-year-old layer with cometary dust, microspherules, and platinum anomaly recorded in multiple cores from Baffin Bay

A Tunguska sized airburst destroyed Tall el-Hammam a Middle Bronze Age city in the Jordan Valley near the Dead Sea