Centre Européen de Recherche et d'Enseignement des Géosciences de et de l'Environnement

3 novembre 2017 (Athens)
Conference "New Technologies, Palaeo-Hazards and GeoArchaeology", focuses on the four following Topics.

http://geoarch-hazards.geol.uoa.gr/index.php/about-conference/conference-topics

New Technologies in Coastal Research
Maritime and Coastal Geoarchaeology
Relative sea-level changes in Geo-archaeological context
Palaeogeographical Reconstruction and Palaeo-Hazards

Geoarchaeology of the Danube delta and palaeo-environment of ancient settlements (Histria, Enisala and Halmyris). Poster presented at MMSH

International conference "Climate and Societies in the Mediterranean during the Last Two Millennia" 8-9 March 2017 Aix-en-Provence France

River deltas began forming around 7000 years BP because of the stabilization of mean sea level and high sedimentary inputs at base-level. The natural variety of wetland environments on clastic coasts, in particular deltas, explains in major part the important disparities in harbour contexts. These different geomorphological contexts led to specific pressures and potentialities for maritime activities. In this presentation, I will describe an investigation of four different sites using a combination of earth science and archaeological tools.
At the deltaic scale, we investigate 7000 years of environmental changes on the Kuban delta (Taman Peninsula, Russia). We show that the local inhabitants faced significant natural constraints that have undoubtedly dictated the development and decline of some cities, in particular during archaic a nd classical periods.
At the local scale (ancient settlements), we show that the natural environment, such as lagoons or estuaries were particularly attractive for ancient population looking for good mooring areas. We focus on the potentialities and constraints of such environments for the development of harbours in three different sites: Akko (Haifa Bay, Israel), Pollentia (Mallorca, Balearic archipelago) and Halmyris (Danube delta, Romania).

In Northern Dobrogea, north of the Dunavăţ promontory, the Roman fortress of Halmyris was founded in the late 1st century on a Getae settlement dated back the middle of the 1st millennium BC. 8000 years ago, the area of the later Danube delta was a vast open marine bay. Since the end of the post-glacial marine transgression, the Danube delta has prograded and divided into several arms, first along the Dunavăţ promontory and then to the north and the south leading to the progressive retreat of the sea. The ancient fortress of Halmyris, the most eastern Roman fortification on the Danube, faces the St. George arm that has been the most active arm of the river during Antiquity. Our chronostratigraphic study was undertaken to: (i) understand landscape changes of the area of the latter Halmyris since ca. 7500 years BP, (ii) identify the fluvial environments close to the city in Roman times in order to locate and characterise the harbour. For this study, several cores were extracted from the Danube delta plain for palaeoenvironmental investigations. Here, we concentrate on the study of bio-sedimentological content of the core HAIII that shows a classic regressive sequence dominated by a marine environment at the base of the core, overlain by fluvial sediments. The progress of the delta front seaward led to the formation of a floodplain from the fifth millennium BC onwards. It was characterized by numerous lakes, attested in the core by large organic-rich peat layers. The Roman harbour was probably installed in a secondary channel of the St. George whose depth was at least 175 cm at the end of the 7th century.

I SEMINARI INTERNACIONAL D’ARQUEOLOGIA MARÍTIMA MEDIEVAL I MODERNA

INFRAESTRUCTURES PORTUÀRIES D’ÈPOCA MEDIEVAL I MODERNA A LA MEDITERRÀNIA OCCIDENTAL

DIVENDRES, 14 DE DESEMBRE DE 2018

SALA DE PROMOCIÓ ECONÒMICA-ROSES, CARRER DE MADRID, 1, ROSES

2018, Bivolaru A., Giaime M., Rossi V., Bottez V., Marriner N., Morhange C., Lungu V., Streinu M., Between the Danube Delta and the Black Sea. Preliminary results of a multi-proxy study of two archaeological sites (Histria and Halmyris, Romania), Black Sea Archaeology Studies, Recent Developments, D. Yiğitpaşa, H. Öniz, A. Temür eds., TINA, pp. 13-31.