Stratigraphy of late-Holocene deposits of the ancient harbour of Marseilles, southern France

Abstract

The late-Holocene stratigraphy of Marseilles harbour is presented together with archaeological evidence and radiocarbon data. An anthropogenic oyster midden, dated between c. 4260 and 3400 14 C yr BP is followed by a period of siltation that ended the accretionary growth of an algal (marl) deposit. This event was caused by early human settlement. Subsequently the coastline was subject to progradation. It is argued here that the development of the rst town of Marseilles, c. 2600 years ago, accelerated soil erosion and sediment deposition in the harbour area.

The environs of Elaia's ancient open harbour – a reconstruction based on microfaunal evidence

“…C. torosa is the most frequent and most widely distributed ostracod species within the Recent samples indicating brackish water conditions (Frenzel and Boomer, 2005;Pint et al, 2012), but lives as an opportunistic species in nearly any other aqueous habitats as well. C. torosa and other typical brackish water ostracod species like Loxoconcha elliptica and some Leptocythere species, which could indicate a closed harbour basin (Mazzini et al, 1999;Morhange et al, 2003;Marriner and Morhange, 2007), are missing in the core ELA 58. On the other hand, the increasing sedimentation rate around 500 BC (Fig.…”

“…Some investigations deal with the function and history of ancient harbour settlements in general: the harbours of Tyre, Lebanon (Marriner and Morhange, 2007;Marriner et al, 2008Marriner et al, , 2010Morhange et al, 2012), Carthage, Tunisia (Gifford et al, 1992), Pergamum (Elaia), Turkey Seeliger et al, 2013), Ephesus, Turkey (Brückner, 1997(Brückner, , 2005Stock et al, 2013), Corinth (Lechaion), Greece (Hadler et al, 2013), Marseille (Morhange et al, 2003), Rome, Italy , Ostia, Italy (Goiran et al, 2014) e to mention a few. Others describe special harbour or economy facilities like fish tanks and ship sheds in relation to the palaeo-sea level in detail.…”

Geoarchaeology of Sidon's ancient harbours, Phoenicia

“…Silting of the Mediterranean's ancient ports is a recurrent theme in coastal geoarchaeology, playing a significant role in littoral progradation and human exploitation of the anchorages [3,4,50,58,59]. Ancient societies strived permanently with the silting problem, and indeed in areas of high sediment supply it was a constant endeavour to maintain a viable draught depth [46].…”

Ostracodological studies in archaeological settings: a review

“…Ostracods are also commonly used in marginal marine environments where oligotypic foraminifer assemblages cannot provide the required information and diatom assemblages may contain mixed material washed from rivers, tributaries and sea (Boomer et al, 2003). Along the Mediterranean coasts many coastal harbours have been studied with a geoarcheological approach that includes the use of ostracod analyses, as in Alexandria in Egypt , Marseille in France (Morhange et al, 2003), Luna and Portus in Italy (Bini et al, 2012;Mazzini et al, 2011;Goiran et al, 2010), ancient Tyre in Lebanon (Marriner et al, 2008), Kition in Cyprus and Ephesus in Turkey (Stock et al, 2013). In continental settings, ostracods have recently been used to reconstruct the salinity and aquatic environments in the Neolithic Rio Sizandro, Portugal (Lord et al, 2011), to shed light on the complex fluvial, sea-level and archaeological history of the Thames River at Swanscombe, England , to investigate the palaeoenvironment and palaeoclimate at Boxgrove, England (Holmes et al, 2010), and to study the long-term evolution of the Paleolithic sites in a desert oasis in Syria (Le Tensorer et al, 2007).…”