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Landscape Changes around Tiryns during the Bronze Age
Abstract and Figures
Excavations and auger cores have revealed the Holocene stratigraphy in the vicinity of the Late Bronze Age citadel of Tiryns. During the Early Bronze Age, when the shoreline was only 300 m from the limestone hillock on which Tiryns rests, an expensive settlement covered the southern district of the lower town. Its remains are today buried by up to 6 m of sediment. Late in Early Helladic II a stream south of Tiryns accumulated several meters of gravel and floodplain deposits. In LH IIIB/C this stream abandoned its bed and shifted to the north of the Tiryns knoll. At the same time it deposited up to 4 m of coarse alluvium in the eastern parts of the palatial lower town. This depositional event may have coincided with a destruction phase in the archaeological record of Tiryns. To protect the lower town from future floods the inhabitants of Tiryns installed an artificial river diversion consisting of a 10-m-high dam and a 1.5-km-long canal.*
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... Reconstructing the history of alluvial deposits of Greek mainland rivers is done through geomorphological and geoarcheological studies mainly conducted in the Peloponnesus, Macedonia, and Crete (e.g. Dufaure, 1976;Wagstaff, 1981;van Andel et al., 1990;Zangger, 1994;Fouache, 1999;Krahtopoulou, 2000;Lespez, 2003;Pope et al., 2003;Macklin et al., 2010;Glais et al., 2016b). These works evidenced major phases of alluviation, mainly from the Late Neolithic era. ...
... Over the last 50 years and starting with the pioneering works carried out by Kraft along the Aegean coast (Kraft et al., 1977), an impressive number of case studies focusing on the paleogeographic reconstruction of Greek mainland deltas has been completed. Among these, we can cite the robust works conducted by Zangger in South Argolida (Zangger, 1994) and Boeotia (Zangger, 1991). Analysis of results evidenced an early development of deltas from the Late Neolithic to the Early Helladic era, a timeline similar to the one obtained by Kraft et al. (1977) for the Sperchios delta (West-Central Aegean area). ...
... The Minyans, in Central Greece, reclaim land around wet depressions and develop hydro-agricultural systems: they build levees, canals, and a tunnel to partly drain Lake Copais. But the Mycenians also used their hydraulic knowledge to control the effects of torrential floods, as in Tiryns (Zangger, 1994). After a catastrophic flood that destroyed part of the lower city during the Late Helladic III B-C, the inhabitants undertook the construction of a 10 m high dam and a 1.5 km long torrent diversion canal to protect the palace and houses from flooding. ...
Greece is recognized worldwide for its archeological remains. These bear witness of a long human history, from the early stages of the Neolithization of Europe, ca. 8500 years ago, to the apogee of city-states in ancient Greece. This early occupation by populations of farmers and stock breeders had a long-term impact on the environment. Deforestation and soil erosion associated with prescribed fire and the development of agricultural practices have significantly contributed to shaping the geography of the country, from the Balkan Mountains to the Aegean coast. The anthropogenic imprint on the environment has not been without consequences, and past societies had to adapt to environmental crises, such as climate fluctuations, sometimes caused or reinforced by anthropogenic factors. Greece is also a place where Western science emerged and where scholars could discuss at a very early stage the role of these practices in the transformation of the environment. A synthesis of the intensive research conducted in the area of geoarcheology, paleoenvironment, and geohistory on the dynamics of coastal and continental areas evidences the magnitude of changes observed over the last ten millennia. It also reveals a huge and lasting geographical legacy and illustrates the way societies brought, were subjected, or adapted to change. We will discuss here issues relating to geographical and climate determinism, socio-environmental crises, and the ability of societies to adapt to environmental change.
... Over the past decades, numerous studies have provided a good understanding of the Holocene palaeogeographic evolution of the coastal plains in Greece, particularly in Peloponnese (e.g. Zangger, 1994Zangger, , 1991Fouache and Dalongeville, 1998;Engel et al., 2009), in Aetolia-Acarnania (e.g. Vött et al., 2006Vött et al., , 2007Fouache et al., 2005), in Macedonia (e.g. ...
... Further south, in Peloponnese, the Late Helladic (Mycenaean) is characterised by a dense settlement pattern associated with relative landscape stability. The detrital input reported for this period should be seen as the result of land-use strategies such as terracing [107,108]. Isolated short-term sedimentation events dating to the end of the Late Helladic period are recorded in the alluvial deposits of the Phlious Basin [18], at Tiryns in the Argive Plain, and at Chania and Mycenae [109][110][111]. These events may suggest lapsed maintenance after the breakdown of the Mycenaean palatial economy. ...
This paper aims to reconstruct the alluvial activity for the Lilas river, the second-largest catchment of Euboea Island (Central Western Aegean Sea), for approximately the last three and a half millennia. The middle reaches (Gides basin) exhibit several historical alluvial terraces that were first recognised in the 1980s but have remained poorly studied, resulting in uncertain chronological control of palaeofluvial activity. In order to reconstruct the past fluvial dynamics of the Lilas river, a ca. 2.5 m thick stratigraphic profile has been investigated for granulometry and magnetic parameters. Absolute dating of the sediments was possible by applying Optically Stimulated Luminescence (OSL). The results reveal: (i) two coarse-grained aggradational episodes dated from the Mycenaean/Early Iron Age and the Roman periods, respectively, (ii) a phase of rapid fine-grained vertical accretion corresponding to the Late Byzantine to early Venetian periods, (iii) potential evidence for final alluvial deposition from the Little Ice Age/Ottoman period, and (iv) two major incision episodes inferred from Ancient Greek times and most of the Byzantine period. Based on the published core material, the paper also evaluates the direct impacts of the Late Holocene alluviation recorded mid-stream on the fluvial system situated downstream in the deltaic area. Sediment sourcing is attempted based on the magnetic properties of the catchment lithology and of alluvium collected upstream along the main stream bed. Finally, the present paper discusses the possible links between Late Holocene hydroclimatic oscillations and the aggradational/incision phases revealed in the Gides basin. Correlations are attempted with regional palaeoclimate records obtained for the Aegean. In addition to climatic variability, anthropogenic factors are considered: specific land use for agricultural purposes, in particular during the Mycenaean period, the Roman and the Late Byzantine/Early Venetian periods, might have enhanced sediment deposition. Archaeological information and pollen records were also evaluated to reconstruct regional land-use patterns and possible impacts on soil accumulation over the last 3.5 millennia.
Lacustrine environments are considered favorable locations for Neolithic settlements, constituting a reliable year‐round water resource, which contributes to fertile arable land, rich biodiversity, and natural protection. Living by the wetlands, however, is characterized by intensive ecological vulnerabilities, that is, floods and fire events. These recurrent episodes are difficult to trace in the occupation layers since natural processes combined with human activities can form variable mixed microenvironments. Consequently, the direct impact of these events on the biography of the settlement and the decision‐making of its inhabitants is understudied. This paper presents a high‐resolution, microstratigraphic analysis at the Neolithic pile‐dwelling settlement of Dispilio (Kastoria, northern Greece) to trace past ecological threats and unravel the resilience strategies of the lake‐dwellers against the continuously altered microenvironments. By correlating the results with regional environmental and cultural events, this paper questions the role of environmental changes as triggers for cultural modifications and considers a wide range of strategies for coping with wetland hazards.
The Ayios Vasileios Survey Project is part of the Ayios Vasileios Excavations Project. The broader project includes the excavations of the Mycenaean palace and the early Mycenaean North Cemetery. The survey project consists of a pedestrian survey and a geophysical exploration of the area, and is accompanied by an ethnographic survey. In this article we discuss the results of the pedestrian survey and offer a reconstruction of the habitation history of the site. In the following discussion, we first introduce the site of Ayios Vasileios and sketch a brief outline of the research carried out at the site thus far and its habitation history. Secondly, we present the pedestrian survey methodology. This is followed by an extensive discussion of the distribution and date of the collected surface material for the main periods attested at the site: the Bronze Age, the Classical-Hellenistic, the Roman, and the Medieval and Early Modern. The spatial and temporal patterns are contextualised and compared with data generated by the excavation and geophysical research already published. The integration of these different data allows us to provide a more detailed reconstruction of the extent and spatial development of the site through time.
This article focusses on one of my favourite landscapes, the Plain of Argos, and my involvement with its Bronze Age landscape over a period of more than forty years. In 1972 I left Cambridge University at the start of my PhD, to begin gathering research data in the field in Greece, armed with not much more than the topic ‘The Prehistory of Greece’. However I did have one central methodology and indeed philosophy in my mind, acquired as a BA student at Cambridge during informal supervisions with Eric Higgs and subsequently on fieldwork with him or his research team in Israel and Italy. At this time, the start of the 1970s, Ecology was emerging from an obscure branch of Botany into a globally-significant approach to our place in a dynamic biosphere, and Higgs’ Palaeoeconomy Movement in Cambridge began to attract many other young PhD and Postdoctoral scholars in Archaeology who were dissatisfied with Culture History approaches.
This study provides a high-resolution reconstruction of the vegetation of the Argive Plain (Peloponnese, Greece) covering 5000 years from the Early Bronze Age onwards. The well dated pollen record from ancient Lake Lerna has been interpreted in the light of archaeological and historical sources, climatic data from the same core and other regional proxies. Our results demonstrate a significant degree of human impact on the environments of the Argive Plain throughout the study period. During the Early Bronze Age evidence of a thermophilous vegetation is seen in the pollen record, representing the mixed deciduous oak woodland of the Peloponnesian uplands. The plain was mainly used for the cultivation of cereals, whereas local fen conditions prevailed at the coring site. Towards the end of this period an increasing water table is recorded and the fen turns into a lake, despite more arid conditions. In the Late Bronze Age, the presence of important palatial centres modified the landscape resulting in decrease of mixed deciduous oak woodland and increase in open land, partly used for grazing. Possibly, the human management produced a permanent hydrological change at Lake Lerna. From the Archaic period onwards the increasing human pressure in association with local drier conditions caused landscape instability, as attested by a dramatic alluvial event recorded in the Pinus curve at the end of the Hellenistic Age. Wet conditions coincided with Roman times and favoured a forest regeneration pattern in the area, at the same time as we see the most intensive olive cultivation in the pollen record. The establishment of an economic landscape primarily based on pastures is recorded in the Byzantine period and continues until modern times. Overgrazing and fires in combination with arid conditions likely caused degradation of the vegetation into garrigue, as seen in the area of the Argive Plain today.
The Ayios Vasileios Survey Project is a five-year project carried out at the site of Ayios Vasileios, where remains of a Mycenaean palatial complex have been uncovered. The project aims to reconstruct the extent and spatial development of the settlement through time, by means of pedestrian field survey, geophysical survey and ethnographic interviews. Our preliminary results, based on the surveys, indicate that the settlement may not have been continuously inhabited during the Bronze Age and was of limited extent. Furthermore, the presence of fortifications is uncertain. Compared to other (possible) palatial sites on the Greek Mainland, this developmental trajectory of Ayios Vasileios is somewhat unusual, but not entirely unique. We therefore argue, building upon earlier discussions, that the current palatial model of political organization in Late Bronze Age Greece is in need of reassessment. In the case of Ayios Vasileios, we may consider the possibility that its sudden rise to (a small) palatial site should be sought in its relations and integration with surrounding settlements. Indeed, we raise the possibility that power may have been shared among various groups within and among settlements in the area, which may explain the sudden fall of Ayios Vasileios.
Soil erosion resulting from human exploitation of the land has attracted much public and scientific interest. Being regarded mainly as a modem phenomenon, however\ its prehistoric and historical extent remain largely unexplored. Here we summarize three regional studies of Holocene erosion and alluviation in Greece, together with information derived from the literature, and conclude that most recorded Holocene soil erosion events are spatially and temporally related to human interference in the landscape. Wherever adequate evidence exists, a major phase of soil erosion appears to follow by 500-1000 years the introduction of farming in Greece, its age depending on when agriculture was introduced and ranging from the later Neolithic to the late Early Bronze Age. Later Bronze Age and historical soil erosion events are more scattered in time and space, but especially the thousand years after the middle of the 1st millennium B.c. saw serious, intermittent soil erosion in many places. With the exception of the earliest Holocene erosion phase, the evidence is compatible with a model of control of the timing and intensity of landscape destabilization by local economic and political conditions. On the whole, however, periods of landscape stability have lasted much longer than the mostly brief episodes of soil erosion and stream aggradation.
`Climate' is often used by historians to explain phenomena for which they cannot otherwise account. Accordingly, much of what has been written about climatic effects and climatic change must be read with extreme scepticism. Even though a disturbance may be obvious in the archaeological record, and it may be synchronous with a climatic event, a cause and effect relation should be demonstrated before one can say with any degree of confidence that the evidence is secure. Only when a number of separate lines of investigation agree on the same thing are we safe in positing true climatic `effect' or `change'. This paper focuses on several instances in Mediterranean and Aegean archaeology where more or less satisfactory evidence for climatic change may be sought among a number of disciplines.
In the context of an archaeological survey of the southern Argolid, Greece, studies have been carried out to elucidate the evolution of the landscape since its earliest known human occupation about 50,000 years ago. One of these studies was a detailed geological mapping of the late Quaternary alluvium and soils in the area. Dated by means of thorium-uranium disequilibria, archaeological finds, and historical information, seven periods of alluviation were identified, each of short duration relative to long intervening periods of stability and soil formation. The three earliest alluvial phases, falling before and during the last glacial interval, range from about 330,000 to 32,000 years in age. No alluviation accompanied the last glacial maximum around 20,000 years ago. In fact, a stable landscape persisted until about 4500 years ago, when debris flows and widespread aggradation in the valleys resulted from major slope destabilization and soil erosion, probably as a result of extensive land clearance in the Early Bronze Age. A subsequent stable period lasted through the many upheavals of the later Bronze Age, the Dark Ages, and the early historical period. It came to an end with a brief phase of alluviation between about 300 and 50 BC. Stability returned through the late Roman period, notwithstanding considerable expansion of the settled area. Another period of destabilization, this one marked by debris flows and hence major soil erosion, is poorly fixed in time, but probably coincides with expanded maquis clearance accompanying the resettlement of the area around AD 1000. Subsequent events of soil erosion and aggradation vary in nature and timing from one drainage to the next and, in some areas, continue today.
Borings in the Argive Plain reveal cycles of marine incursions, each ending with a Mediterranean soil profile and followed by a prograded fluvial and coastal wedge. The sediment prism of the Gulf of Argos shelf, visible in high-resolution seismic reflection profiles, also consists of transgressive and regressive depositional sequences identified by onlap, downlap, and truncation of deposits. At least four major reflectors, recognizable by their high acoustic impedance and erosional features, can be correlated across the shelf. The sediments between each pair of reflectors represent the seaward part of a set of transgressive and regressive marine deposits. They can be matched to the stratigraphic sequence on land where each marine unit is topped by a soil. Corrected for subsidence, the terminations of the onlapping and downlapping units define a local sea-level history; its time scale can be derived from a comparison with the eustatic sea-level history deduced from ocean cores. Thus, marine seismic reflection data can be used for the correlation of Quaternary oceanic and terrestrial chronologies.
There has recently been renewed interest in the dating of the violent
eruption of the Aegean island of Santorini in the second millennium BC,
both by its possible effects on tree-ring growth in the United
States1 (suggesting a date of 1628-1626 BC), and by
acidity peaks in ice cores from South Greenland2 (suggesting
1645 BC). We now show that oak trees growing on bogs in Northern Ireland
produce significant concentrations of extremely narrow rings within a
few periods less than 20 years long and that these periods correspond to
the dates suggested by other methods for major volcanic eruptions. In
particular, one of them, corresponding to a short period beginning in
1628 BC, was probably caused by Santorini. This date is qualitatively
better than those derived from carbon-14 or ice cores, because it is
based on an absolute tree-ring chronology.
Many studies have been made of ancient Greek topography, some of the more recent ones based on modern techniques. However,
most still ignore the subsurface dimension of coastal and other environments and hence fail to fully explain coastal and alluvial-colluvial
processes, rates of change of geomorphology, and the effects of coastal change on humans. In this article subsurface geological
analyses have been used to elucidate paleogeographic coastal settings of major archaeological sites around the Aegean Sea.
Similar approaches could be applied in the Middle and Far East and elsewhere in the Mediterranean.