Paleogeographical reconstruction and management challenges of an archaeological site listed by UNESCO: Case of the plain of Xanthos and Letoon (Turkey) (original) (raw)
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During the past decade magnetic surveys using multi-gradiometer arrays have proven to be an eminently suitable tool for the investigation of extensive archaeological sites and landscapes. By means of vehicle-driven devices areas of 10 to 40 ha can be surveyed at high data density in one day. However, in archaeological practice many factual constraints lurk not only beneath the surface. Mediterranean landscapes with long human settlement history are especially often characterised by intensive agricultural use and sprawling industrial and construction activity. In many cases, archaeological sites are already half-destroyed or in danger of imminent total destruction. Thus, archaeologists must not lose time to survey whatever still remains of these records of history. Investigation areas vary in size and in surface conditions. Additionally, in these archaeological landscapes many sites are still hidden in remote places, hardly accessible to motor vehicles. Geophysical prospection projects under these preconditions also require versatile measuring equipment and case-by-case approaches. The geophysical investigations in the Kaikos valley (Bakırçay), the archaeologically very rich landscape between the ancient Greek city of Pergamon in Aeolis and its port Elaea, are textbook examples. Between 2009 and 2011 a number of Classical sites were investigated within the frame of the DFG-funded SPP (priority program) "The Hellenistic polis as a manner of life". The fieldwork was directed by Dr. Albrecht Matthaei from LMu Munich university (Zimmermann 2012; Mattthaei 2014). Parallel to it, a survey program of prehistoric sites in the environs of Pergamon started in 2010. In this case, six prehistoric sites, partly recorded earlier (Driehaus 1957) and partly newly discovered, were surveyed with geophysical methods. The main objective of the survey was to study
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We examined the alluvial history of the plain near Kinet Höyük, an archaeological mound (or Tell) with a sequence of six millennia of occupation on the southeast Mediterranean coast of Turkey, through 17 excavations over a 1000 m transect near the Mound. Excavations ranged from 2 to 6 m deep and up to 20 m across. This low gradient, alluvial plain shows significantly different rates and processes of near-Mound sedimentation, with one unit having nearly 4 m of Late Bronze Age habitation and flood deposits and another having 4 m of Hellenistic channel and floodplain deposition. This flat, alluvial surface turns out to be a rich geoarchaeological landscape that shrouds Early and Late Bronze Age settlements, Hellenistic walls, and two epochs of Roman Roads. One widespread phenomenon was a Hellenistic or earlier paleosol and occupation level covered by channel gravels and overbank deposits mostly from the Hellenistic to the Late Roman period. These channel and floodplain deposits filled in and flattened out the off-Mound settlements, blanketing the Pre-Hellenistic topography and silting in a long active port. This glut of alluvium correlates in time with drier conditions and the most intensive land uses in the watershed, where Roman and Hellenistic sites today are severely eroded.