In 1982 we carried out a shallow-penetration, high-resolution seismic profiling study on the shelf of the southern Argolid, Peloponnesos, Greece, to identify and map the shores of the late Pleistocene and Holocene, and to establish their coastal environments. Portable equipment and a local boat were used. The lowest glacial shore occurs at −115 to −118 m, within the range of global values. The subsequent rise across the distinct old land surface left behind many shore features (scaps, beaches and beach ridges, channels and lagoons) now buried under a few meters of post-transgressive deposits. These features cluster at a small number of depths below present sea level, suggesting that the rise of the sea, usually too fast to leave an imprint, was episodically interrupted by brief stillstands or even temporary reversals of climatic or tectonic origin. The clusters can be roughly dated with reference to a global sea-level-rise curve; after 6000 yr B.P. sparse archaeological data establish a local curve. The seismic profiling technique, convenient and not costly, holds promise for the identification of postglacial shores elsewhere prior to sampling for dating. It has wide application for environmental reconstructions of vanished coastal zones as a basis for prehistoric resource assessments. These applications are illustrated with examples from this study.

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A shallow marine seismic reflection study has clarified the evolution of the landscape around Franchthi Cave in SE Greece during the post-glacial sea-level rise. In late Palaeolithic and Mesolithic times the site, near a sizable river, overlooked a wide coastal plain. Around 9,000 B.P. the shoreline began to approach the present coast forming a possibly enclosed lagoon and later a bay. About 6,000 B.p.flow in the river decreased. An extensive Neolithic settlement may have been located between the river bank or bayshore and the cave. Sea level reached -5 m. ca. 3,000 years ago and remained there until late Roman times, but sedinlentation increased greatly during that period, probably as a result of soil erosion.

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