Landscape reconstruction at the Black Sea cost

Summary

Landscapes are subject to ongoing geological transformation which change, hide or even destroy for their part anthropogenic remains. The reconstruction of historic landscapes as well as the causes of their changes is subject of geoarchaeology.

A noteworthy example for a reconstruction of the historical landscape of a whole region is demonstrated by an interdisciplinary and international project on the South Russian Taman peninsula in the North Pontus. The new insights that were made by geoarchaeology to the phases of the geomorphological formations of today's Taman Peninsula during the Holocene allow now to interpret the archaeological sites as well as together with historians and classical philologists the ancient topography in another way.

Modern landscape reconstructions on the one hand and the ancient written sources on the other hand, and their relation to the known archaeological sites cannot in many cases be brought convincingly in harmony. Hence, numerous drilling cores were taken in several years at well-chosen places. The results of these cores were determined chronologically according to their radiocarbon dating. Unexpectedly appeared that the Taman Peninsula was in ancient times an archipelago and therefore was beside the still existing Strait of Kerč a second waterway further in the east.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 82nd Annual Meeting, Vancouver, BC (2017)   •
• Ongoing Research in Eurasian Archaeology: Assessing the Implications of New Evidence

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Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 15283