Late Paleolithic and Mesolithic Coastlines of Greece and the Aegean

Andel, Tjeerd H. van; Shackleton, Judith C.

doi:10.2307/529681

Cited by 52 publications

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“…But less attention appears to have been focused on the timing and rates of change after the onset of melting of the great ice-sheets. What discussion there is -with the exception of the important paper by van Andel & Shackleton (1982) (see also van Andel 1989) -often leaves the distinct impression that this change in level occurred early and quickly with rather minimal human impact. This paper sets out to describe, using the Aegean Sea region as an example, a realistic model of sea-level change and shoreline migration for the past 20,000 years, one that can provide a framework for discussing impacts of :such change on human movements and settlement.…”

Section: Nature and Consequences Of Postglacial Sealevel Changementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Less attention has been paid to the timing of the sea-level rise from then up to about 6000 years ago, and to the fact that this rise occurred over a substantial time interval. Van Andel & Shackleton (1982) and van Andel (1989), in neglected papers, attempted to quantify sea-level and shoreline changes in the eastern Mediterranean during this Late Glacial period and recognized that the rise occurred over an extended period, with important human implications as the progressive reduction of the relatively hospitable coastal plain environment caused a concomitant loss of resources. The consequences would have been particularly severe for the Cycladean Island, where an extensive, relatively flat and low-lying plain was progressively reduced to a few rocky islands over a period of about 6000 years (FIG-URE 6).…”

Section: Shorelines and The Human Environmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Sea-level change and shore-line evolution in Aegean Greece since Upper Palaeolithic time

1996

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Examples of where such rapid encroachment of the sea occurred include the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Carpentaria of northern Australia, between about 12,000 and 10,000 years b.p. In some areas of the world the sea-levels peaked at about 6000 years b.p., inundating now low-lying areas before falling slowly to their present position. The consequences of these changes on human settlement and movement have been recognized in the archaeological and pre-historic records. Thus it is widely accepted that levels during 1 otherwise specified.All ages are in conventional radiocarbon years unless the Last Glacial Maximum, about 20,000 to 18,000 years ago, were sufficiently lower than today to leave exposed coastal plains that have since flooded. But less attention appears to have been focused on the timing and rates of change after the onset of melting of the great ice-sheets. What discussion there is -with the exception of the important paper by van Andel & Shackleton (1982) (see also van Andel 1989) -often leaves the distinct impression that this change in level occurred early and quickly with rather minimal human impact. This paper sets out to describe, using the Aegean Sea region as an example, a realistic model of sea-level change and shoreline migration for the past 20,000 years, one that can provide a framework for discussing impacts of :such change on human movements and settlement.If, during the decay of the ice sheets, the meltwater volume is distributed uniformly over the oceans, then the sea-level change at time t would be A&@) = change in ocean volume/ocean surface area (1) This 'eustatic sea-level change' is a function of time. It represents only a zero-order approximation because sea-level does not respond uniformly to the melting of the ice caps: the rates of rise are spatially variable, and in some localities sea-level may actually be falling rela-* Research School of Earth Sciences, Australian National University, Canberra ACT 0200, Australia.Received 2 3 January 1996, accepted 2 6 April 1996.ANTIQUITY 70 (1996):

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Section: Nature and Consequences Of Postglacial Sealevel Changementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Shorelines and The Human Environmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Sea-level change and shore-line evolution in Aegean Greece since Upper Palaeolithic time

1996

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“…Even at the Last Glacial Maximum (hereafter LGM), the southern extent of permafrost reached no further than 45° latitude (Bailey, 2000). The Adriatic was a large coastal plain (van Andel and Shackleton, 1982) and sea level was approximately 130m below present day (Lambeck et al, 2002(Lambeck et al, , 2004. The four main ungulate species exploited in the Paleolithic throughout temperate Europe were red deer, horse, aurochs/bison, and reindeer, which occur in large numbers, high density, have a large body size and high reproduction rates, and are known to migrate on a seasonal basis in some cases (Britton et al, 2011, Gamble, 1986, Pellegrini et al, 2008, Pilaar Birch et al, 2016.…”

Section: The Environmental Basis Of Mobility and Settlementmentioning

confidence: 99%

A long hard road… Reviewing the evidence for environmental change and population history in the eastern Adriatic and western Balkans during the Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene

Birch

Linden

2018

Quaternary International

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The eastern Adriatic and western Balkans are key areas for assessing the environmental and population history of Europe during the Late Pleistocene and early Holocene. It has been argued that the Balkan region served as a Late Glacial refugium for humans, animals, and plants, much like Iberia and the Italian Peninsula and in contrast to the harsh conditions of Eastern and Central Europe. As post-glacial amelioration occurred and sea level rose, these regions to the north and west of the Balkan Mountains became forested and were populated by Mesolithic forager-fishers. Meanwhile, to the south, the domestication of plants and animals in the Near East began to cause large-scale environmental as well as lifestyle changes. Even as the Balkan Peninsula was a likely crossroads on the route for the spread of agriculture and herding from Southwest Asia into Europe, issues such as pre-Neolithic settlement, the discussion of human-environment interactions, and the role of climate events such as the 11.4, 9.3, and 8.2 ka cal BP in this critical landscape are often overlooked. Efforts to counter this challenge have been hampered by an apparent lack of data, so that the region hardly occurs in distribution maps. In part this is due to patchy research and a complicated political history, which have contributed to a fragmented archaeological and paleoecological record. Yet, as we show here, there is in fact plenty of evidence available for review. We present a survey of different proxies for environment and settlement throughout the Late Pleistocene and into the Early Holocene, combining radiocarbon data with zooarchaeological, lithic, and palynological records. By mapping this evidence, we are able to discuss the impact of climate change during the Pleistocene/Holocene transition and consider the role of environment and landscape on human population distribution at this crossroads in place and time.

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“…The isolation of the Aegean landmass, including Skyros, occurred 4.5 million years ago, but the formation of the archipelago, by further fragmentation, is supposed to have occurred by early Holocene (Van Andel and Shackleton, 1982;Perissoratis and Conispoliatis, 2003).…”

Section: Study Areamentioning

confidence: 99%

Area and habitat relationships in island land snail faunas: an Aegean case study exploring the choros model

Triantis¹,

Vardinoyannis²,

Mylonas³

2005

Rec West Aust Mus Sup

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-In the present paper we study the biogeography of land snails in the Skyros archipelago (central Aegean) using both conventional species-area analysis and the newly-developed choros model. The choros model is a simple mathematical relationship, which analyses species richness as a function of area and of environmental heterogeneity, quantified by assessing the number of defined habitats present on each island. We surveyed land snails on 12 islands of the archipelago of Skyros in the central Aegean Sea (Greece). The different types of habitats were defined based on the ecology and biology of each species distributed in the archipelago. Forty-two land snail species were recorded living in 11 different habitat types. The z-values from both models, the choros and the classic species-area relationship, place the archipelago in the "within biogeographic province" category, mainly due to the recent formation of the archipelago. This recent formation resulted in a group of small islands still behaving as parts of a continuous landmass. The recorded extinction of land snails in the archipelago follows the general pattern of extinctions of this animal group in the Aegean area. The choros model gave a better fit to the data than the classic species-area model, indicating that the range of habitats available plays a significant role in determining faunal diversity independently of area. The availability of knowledge on the ecology of each species in most islands of the Aegean enabled us to recognise the key environmental features on which we based the definition of the habitat types. Such background knowledge is essential if island studies are to progress beyond the simple demonstration of a species! area relationship.

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Late Paleolithic and Mesolithic Coastlines of Greece and the Aegean

Cited by 52 publications

References 0 publications

Sea-level change and shore-line evolution in Aegean Greece since Upper Palaeolithic time

Sea-level change and shore-line evolution in Aegean Greece since Upper Palaeolithic time

A long hard road… Reviewing the evidence for environmental change and population history in the eastern Adriatic and western Balkans during the Late Pleistocene and Early Holocene

Area and habitat relationships in island land snail faunas: an Aegean case study exploring the choros model

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