Coastal sand dunes can form in a range of settings, including deltas, coastal plains, and embayments. They are aeolian landforms that develop where certain conditions exist: coastlines where waves and currents interact with abundant loose, sand-sized sediments available for transport; persistent onshore or alongshore winds blowing for at least part of the year at 16 kilometers per hour or more; and flat or low-relief terrain immediately inland of the coastline (Bauer and Davidson-Arnott 2002; Martinez et al. 2004; Pye 1983). Dune formation occurs when winds blow dry sand particles landward from the beach; the main sources of the sand are exposed offshore sandbars and river-mouth and other backshore sediments. Objects inland from the coast, such as plants, logs, or human constructions, interrupt the wind flow, causing sand to be deposited in drifts around them. These drifts act as barriers to sand movement, and grow over time to landforms ranging from small hillocks to vast dune systems tens of meters in elevation.
Sediment supply is the key limiting factor to dune formation. Fluvial systems are noteworthy for the large amount of sediment that they can contribute to dune formation: the Nile River has supplied sufficient sands to result in the formation of vast belts of dune ridges (El Banna and Frihy 2009). In Greece, coastal dunes are common, but because of the prevalence of rocky (as opposed to sandy) shorelines and mountainous coastal topography, long, continuous costal dune systems such as are found on French or Dutch coastlines are rare. Instead, coastal
5.7 Formation of the Scamander plain, Troy. Kraft, Kayan et al. 2003: 365, fig. 2. Courtesy of Springer Science+Business Media.
Dunes tend to occur in isolated embayments between promontories and cliffs, or as more extensive but discontinuous coastal dune systems, for example in the western Peloponnese or on Euboea's eastern coast (Heslenfeld et al. 2004: 338; Spanou et al. 2006: 235—37, fig. 1). They tend to exist where barrier islands or wave-dominated depositional landforms occur, often as integral elements of barrier and lagoon systems (Kraft et al. 2005).
Coastal dunes perform several functions beneficial to the stability of coastlines and potentially to humans as well. They shield low-lying coastlines from violent storm winds and waves, and inhibit coastal erosion. They protect against saltwater intrusion into wetlands and dry lands behind them, and they support a diverse flora and fauna (Spanou et al. 2006; S;ykora et al. 2003). Thus, they form an integral part of coastal ecology and the resources to be found there.
Maritime Networks in the Mycenaean World The Anthropogenic Contribution
The human role in coastline formation has been conspicuous in two processes: the acceleration of sedimentation to prograding river deltas, and the creation of artificial harbors. It has long been noted that the shift to settlement in sedentary agropastoral communities in the Mediterranean coincided with mid-Holocene delta formation and shoreline progradation in the estuaries that had resulted from the late Pleistocene-early Holocene marine transgression. Human agency in soil loss — caused by stripping vegetation cover through forest clearing, agriculture, and grazing — has been implicated in increased sediment load to streams and the resulting expansion of deltas and related coastal landforms. But it is not easy to demonstrate a primary human role in this process, particularly for periods as remote as the Neolithic and Bronze Ages. There are three related problems: contemporaneity, causality, and degree of impact (Halstead 2000). The palynological, geoarchaeological, and archaeological data used to assess human impact on sediment load to coastal areas can often be dated only approximately, with the result that the contemporaneity of the impacts seen in these data sets is highly uncertain. Even when the chronological correlation is fairly secure, human causality, as opposed to a variety of climatic and other environmental changes, can be difficult to establish. Finally, the magnitude of the human impact, given the level of population and the specific activities in which communities were engaged, must be evaluated. Can it be demonstrated that Bronze Age population levels in and around coastal drainage systems were sufficiently large and their subsistence practices sufficiently destructive to account for significantly accelerated delta formation and coastline progradation?
In Greece, the most detailed documentation of putative human agency in landscape destabilization resulting in erosion and catastrophic soil loss comes from the southern Argolid. The regional surveys of the Argolid Exploration Project in the 1970s to the 1990s amassed a large body of geological and archaeological data that seemed to indicate human agency in certain episodes of massive Holocene soil erosion (Runnels 1995, 2000; van Andel et al. 1986, 1990; Zangger 1994a). One of these (the Pikrodafni alluvium) was dated broadly by pottery sherds to the end of EH II, and was concentrated in valleys where FN—EH II settlement was extensive (van Andel et al. 1986: 113). The Pikrodafni alluvium is dominated by debris flows: “ . . . chaotic beds of ill-sorted, largely angular boulders, cobbles, and pebbles, surrounded and supported by a matrix of finer material" (van Andel et al. 1986: 111), likely the result of sheet erosion of slopes made vulnerable to soil loss when vegetation cover was devastated by drought, fire, or clearing. Although a change of climate to drier conditions that reduce vegetation may instigate sheet erosion and result in debris flows, the investigators attributed the Pikrodafni alluvium to careless slope clearance and
The “ . . . eventual failure of EH agriculture to contain the loss of soil" (van Andel et al. 1986: 117). This conclusion has been questioned on the grounds of chronological and causal ambiguity as outlined above (e. g., Bintliff 1992; Butzer 2005; Endfield 1997; Moody 1997, 2000; Whitelaw 2000). This debate highlights the problems and underscores the need to assess each event on its own merits before wider inferences about regional land-human relationships can be made.
In general, it is unlikely that the effect of human subsistence activities was such that large natural harbors were strongly affected in the Bronze Age, and particularly it is doubtful that humans made a greater contribution to sedimentation than the combination of climatic oscillations and natural sediment transport after the mid-Holocene stabilization of eustatic sea level. This conclusion is supported by much geomorphological research that shows that rapid infilling of major natural embayments and estuaries in the eastern Mediterranean has been a phenomenon of much more recent times (Brtickner 2003: 122-25; Kraft, Kayan et al. 2003; Raban 1991). On the other hand, small natural inlets and harbors based on barrier and lagoon systems must always have been more susceptible to both anthropogenically and naturally induced sedimentation (Kraft et al. 2005), migrating and going in and out of practical use with much greater frequency.
The creation of artificial harbors in the Bronze Age Aegean is unlikely, but cannot be ruled out entirely. This kind of harbor is an artificial estuary or lagoon, where breakwaters have been constructed to reduce wave energy, creating a quiet and sheltered environment in which vessels may operate. At the same time, by minimizing the normal forces of waves and littoral currents, artificial harbors promote the net accumulation of sediment. A universal feature of artificial harbors is that they must be maintained by dredging or by some means of flushing sediment from the harbor basin. All of the processes that occur in natural estuaries also occur in artificial harbors, but they may be accelerated due to intensive human presence. Because the maintenance of harbors responds to the ebb and flow of political and economic conditions, the eventual infilling and abandonment of artificial harbors are all but inevitable (Wells 2001: 171).
Artificial harbors leave distinctive signatures in the geoarchaeological record, which allow them to be distinguished from natural harbors. Nick Marriner and Christophe Morhange (2007: 175-77) have identified a fairly consistent geomorphological sequence repeated throughout the eastern Mediterranean, which they term the “Ancient Harbour Parasequence" (AHP). The AHP comprises the depositional history of the harbor basin, from the natural pre-harbor state to postabandonment, with the following surfaces (boundaries) and deposits (facies):
(1) The Maximum Flooding Surface (MFS) marks the maximum marine transgression circa 6000 BP. It forms the lower boundary of the sediment
Archive, and laterally the farthest landward position of the coast. The deposit is characterized by coarse sand and pebbles.
(2) After 6000 BP, beach sands began to aggrade naturally, overlaying the MFS with little or no human contribution. Net sediment supply increased as the coastline prograded and the basin began to fill.
(3) The Harbour Foundation Surface (HFS) marks the incipient human modification of the basin, in the form of built harborworks, to create a sheltered harbor basin. A sharp transition from coarse beach sands to fine-grained silts and clays characterizes the sedimentology of the harbor basin. In most of the Mediterranean, this surface postdates the Bronze Age. Human exploitation of natural low-energy basins in the Bronze Age is rarely measurable on the basis of granulometry, but can sometimes be detected in subtle patterns of molluscan micro - and macrofossil assemblages (Mar-riner and Morhange 2007: 176).
(4) The Ancient Harbour Facies (AHF) refers to the stratigraphic sequence of deposits during active use of an artificial harbor. Enhanced harbor engineering through time is evident in increasingly fine deposits (silts and plastic clays) through the Roman period, and remnants of harbor architecture (moles, breakwaters, quays, etc.), artifacts, and other anthropogenic debris are often present. The AHF may generate a diagnostic assemblage of macro - and microfauna, as well as a strong geochemical signature from human pollutants.
(5) The Harbour Abandonment Surface (HAS) records the initial (semi-) abandonment of the harbor basin, often after the Late Roman period. It corresponds to the deterioration or abandonment of maintenance of harbor infrastructure, and is marked by a transition from fine-grained harbor silts and clays to coarse sands and gravels.
(6) The Harbour Abandonment Facies (HAF) registers a return to “natural" conditions after the harborworks have deteriorated to the point that the basin is exposed to higher-energy wave action and the formation of coarse-grained sand and gravel beaches.
The Ancient Harbour Parasequence framework has been applied by this investigative group to ancient harbors including Beirut (Marriner et al. 2008), Sidon and Tyre (Marriner and Morhange 2006), and Marseille (Morhange et al. 2003), and they have also fitted the geostratigraphy of other harbors, such as Caesarea Maritima (Reinhardt and Raban 1999), into this scheme (Marriner and Morhange 2007: 172-74, fig. 29).
Natural versus Artircial Harbors in the Mycenaean World
As observed above, it is widely assumed that neither artificial harbor basins nor durable built harbor infrastructure existed in the Aegean Bronze Age. Centuries later, Homer and Hesiod were barely aware of artificial harbors
5.8 Reconstruction of ship sheds at Kommos. Shaw 1990: 425, fig. 9, drawing by Giuliana Bianco. Courtesy of the Trustees of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens.
(Morton 2001: 106), and the image of Odysseus' crews dragging their ships onto sandy beaches has been held up as representing standard practice in the Bronze Age. But is this really the case? Blind acceptance of the notion that all Bronze Age harbors were natural, and that ships were simply pulled up onto sandy beaches in the Homeric style (e. g., Iliad 1.485—86), has been justly criticized by Avner Raban (1991: 136) on the grounds that it has prevented investigators from looking for artificial harbor works or from accepting evidence for them. Nevertheless, to date there remains little evidence for built harbor infrastructure in the Mycenaean world. The Minoans, perhaps because of their earlier contact with Egyptian and Near Eastern seafaring societies, seem to have been more advanced in this respect. At a small number of Cretan coastal sites, large buildings divided into long, narrow galleries have been interpreted as ship sheds, used for storage of ships and nautical equipment during the winter months.4 The clearest case is the excavated Building P at Kommos (J. Shaw 1990; M. Shaw 1985; Shaw and Shaw 1999; Fig. 5.8); at more than 37 meters long and 5.6 meters wide, the galleries of Building P could accommodate the largest of the ships depicted in the Akrotiri Flotilla Fresco (see Table 3.1). Other candidates for ship sheds include the “Shore Building" or “Shore House" at Gournia (Fotou 1993; Shaw and Shaw 1990: 852, n. 16; Watrous 2010), as well as unexcavated foundations and cuttings at Malia and Nirou Chani (Marinatos 1926: 146; Raban 1991: 139—40; Shaw 1990: 425—28). Elsewhere, cuttings and ruins of built features have been proposed as channels, moles, and tombolos associated with Minoan harbors (Chryssoulaki 2005; Hadjidaki 2004: 54—56). These features cannot at present be dated directly; typically, they are considered to be Minoan based on close spatial, but not stratigraphic, association with remains of Minoan buildings or artifacts. Nothing comparable has been identified on the Greek mainland.
Even the well-dated Building P is beset by interpretive issues that are crucial for the present discussion. Building P was constructed over the ruins of LM I Building J/T during pottery phase LM IIIA2, corresponding to the later fourteenth century BC. This was a time of new beginnings in the Mesara region; at nearby Ayia Triada, a megaron-style building was constructed, similar to contemporary Mycenaean megara on the mainland. A spirited debate continues on whether the Mycenaeans exercised political control over large parts of Crete during this time. If so, Building P could be a Mycenaean construction, as it has sometimes been called (Haggis 2003; Yasur-Landau 2010: 50). The excavators do not share this view, however (Shaw and Shaw 1997). They find no close parallel for Building P on the Mycenaean mainland, and they continue to believe that the Mycenaeans exercised neither direct political control nor extensive cultural influence over the Mesara in the Late Bronze Age. Instead, they point to icono-graphic evidence for the non-Mycenaean origin of the Cretan ship shed (J. Shaw 1990: 429—32; M. Shaw 1985). At Akrotiri, a portion of the Flotilla Fresco on the north wall of Room 5 depicts soldiers marching to the right of a large building partitioned into narrow, open galleries facing the shore, very similar in form to Building P. The fresco at Ayia Irini on Kea depicting a seaside scene may also preserve the corner of such a building (Shaw 1990: 430—31).5 The idea of an earlier Minoan tradition finds support at Gournia: on the putative ship shed there, Vance Watrous (2010: 13) comments, “Similar in material, masonry, and monumental scale to the palace at Gournia, the ship-shed galleries seem to have been built at roughly the same time as the palace, probably in MM IIIA." Thus, the Cretan ship sheds bring us no closer to definitive proof of Mycenaean built harbor infrastructure.
If the Mycenaeans did not erect built structures to enhance coastal topography, in one case at least they seem to have created an artificial harbor basin at a remove from the coastline. At Romanou near Pylos, according to Eberhard Zangger and associates, the Mycenaeans created an artificial harbor basin by means of a sophisticated hydraulic engineering project (Zangger et al. 1997: 619—23; Fig. 5.9). A natural depression comprising soft fossil dunes some 500 meters from the Bronze Age shoreline was widened and deepened to serve as the harbor basin. A channel approximately 40 to 50 meters wide was dug to connect this basin to a small natural cove at the coast that had probably been the original anchorage. To prevent longshore sediments from silting up the harbor basin, the perennial Selas River was diverted upstream to provide a steady flow of clean water to flush the basin. The Selas was first diverted into a lake, and from there an outlet controlled the outflow of clean overspill water, which was conducted by an artificial canal to the harbor basin. The diversion of the Selas River has been dated to the LBA by establishing the radiocarbon chronology of a sharp drop in terrestrial sediments in cores from the Osmanaga Lagoon, the natural outlet for the river prior to the diversion (Zangger et al. 1997: 622). The result was a sheltered and readily defensible inner harbor.
The components of this harbor virtually disappeared from the landscape once the authority that maintained it was gone; it was only recognized through a careful and expert geomorphological analysis, and to date remains the only known Mycenaean artificial harbor. Nevertheless, this approach to harbor construction is entirely in keeping with the ambitious hydraulic engineering projects
5.9 Hypothetical reconstruction of an artificial harbor at Pylos. Drawing by Felice Ford after Zangger et al. 1997: 619, fig. 46.
At which the Mycenaeans excelled, the most prominent being the drainage and water management of the Kopais Basin in Boeotia (Knauss 2001), and the Kofini Dam near Tiryns (Zangger 1994a). The work of geomorphologists reminds us that Bronze Age coastal features, whether natural or artificial, are difficult to detect, yet it is possible to read them from the modern landscape if one is attuned to the traces they leave behind and adept in the techniques for recovering them. Although it is unlikely that many harbors as elaborate as the one at Romanou existed in Mycenaean times, this discovery does provide an example of the kind of harbor engineering of which the Mycenaeans were capable, and offers impetus to continued search for other engineered harbors.
Apart from natural harbors that were used during the Bronze Age, a variety of coastal wetlands could be exploited for diverse uses and resources. Deltas, estuaries, and lagoons are merely part of a broader series of coastal landscapes characterized by high biomass and biodiversity, which may also include lakes, bogs, river floodplains, spring-fed wetlands, and seasonally inundated dolines and poljes (Van de Noort and O'Sullivan 2006: 36—64). From such coastal settings in the Mediterranean, resources were readily available such as reeds and rushes for architectural construction; clay for pottery, mudbrick, and other architectural applications; and fish, waterfowl, amphibians, and mollusks.6 Wetlands are underappreciated as a resource for Bronze Age communities partly because in the modern world their settings are peripheral and they are rapidly disappearing through reclamation and other forms of human interference.
Geoarchaeological Methods for Reconstructing Coastal Landscapes
The investigation of ancient coastal landscapes by geoarchaeological means is a well-established tradition with a rich literature, but one that continues to evolve with technological advances and new perspectives influenced in part by recent trends in landscape archaeology, giving rise to a “theoretically informed landscape approach" (Breen and Lane 2003: 469—70; Marriner and Morhange 2007: 180). The methodology of coastal geoarchaeology involves extensive work in both the field and laboratory, and a wide range of materials as proxies for past conditions and processes. The basic principles and techniques are widely published and demonstrated by case studies (e. g., Marriner and Morhange 2007; Rapp and Hill 1998: 75-81; Summerfield 1991: 313-42, 433-55; Wells 2001). To be truly effective, these techniques must be performed in combination, and to realize their potential to illuminate the human past, they must be integrated with archaeological investigation.
The purpose of this section is to summarize the elements of a robust geoarchaeological investigation of a coastal landscape, following the framework outlined by Marriner and Morhange (2007; see also Brtickner 2003: 125-26; Goiran and Morhange 2003) that broadly divides the work between field and laboratory techniques.
Field Techniques
Geomorphological survey involves the initial mapping of coastal landforms, typically starting from maps (geological, topographic, soils), images (satellite, aerial photographs), and archaeological information (chronological, distributional) on sites and features in the coastal zone. These documents may reveal a wealth of information, and form a baseline for the research design. High-resolution satellite images and low-altitude aerial photographs often yield visual evidence for coastal landforms, such as barrier and lagoon systems, or evidence for ancient harbors, such as uplifted harbor basins or submerged harbor installations (Fig. 5.10).
Subsequent ground truthing, both on land and under water, allows natural and anthropogenic features to be studied firsthand in order to form provisional hypotheses about the morphology, genesis and developmental sequences, and chronology of coastal landforms. In many cases, landforms may be visible, for example, dune ridges, infilled lagoons, estuaries, river and stream features, beach ridges, and fossil sea cliffs, but they must be constrained chronologically and present morphologies should not be extrapolated to the past without detailed analysis. Indications of sea-level change may be apparent in submerged buildings, stranded harbor basins, wave-cut notches on fossil sea cliffs, erosion
5.10 Aerial photograph of submerged harbor remains near Naples. Reprinted from Marriner and Morhange 2007: 151, fig. 13, with permission of Elsevier.
Benches (platforms), and other terrestrial and underwater features. Road cuts, irrigation ditches, foundation trenches, and eroded coastal cliffs are common targets of opportunity providing windows onto past depositional and erosional sequences. There are two essential principles that must guide observations about sea-level change, however. First, the critical consideration is relative sea level; that is, the relationship between land and sea at any location is affected by erosional, depositional, and tectonic processes, and not merely by the absolute changes suggested by global or regional eustatic sea-level curves. Consequently, the second principle is that each coastal location has its own relative sea-level curve, determined by local tectonic controls as well as distinct erosional and depositional characteristics. Rapp and Kraft (1994: 73) emphasize that composite regional sea-level curves, or those borrowed from “nearby" localities, usually lead to errors in interpretation.
Observations of visible coastal landforms and archaeological features often form the basis for speculation regarding the layout and date of ancient harbors. This tradition is particularly strong with respect to purported Minoan harbors on Crete (Chryssoulaki 2005; Hadjidaki 2004; Marinatos 1926; Raban 1991; Shaw 1990). Typically, the evidence might include artifact concentrations, foundations of Minoan-style walls extending into the sea, anchors found in the nearby sea bed, or cuttings in bedrock that cannot be dated. The arguments for the existence of these harbors often cite the prominence of Minoan seafaring in the Bronze Age (Chryssoulaki 2005; Hadjidaki 2004), an important consideration but not a directly relevant form of evidence. Thus, although reasonable hypotheses may be derived from archaeological observations and general historical arguments, little can be said with real conviction, and little detailed information can be obtained, in the absence of a full geoarchaeological assessment. Marriner and Morhange (2007: 162) cite the cautionary tale of the harbor at Kition-Bamboula on Cyprus, which two researchers depicted as a cothon based on modern engravings and field observations, before a geoarchaeological investigation revealed this to be erroneous (Morhange et al. 2000).
Geophysical survey employs nondestructive techniques to detect remotely subsurface features on land and under water. In terrestrial archaeological contexts, extensive use has been made of ground-penetrating radar, magnetometry, electromagnetics, and resistivity (Kvamme 2003; Sarris and Jones 2000). Each instrument and technique has its optimal use conditions and detection characteristics. Because harbors and other coastal features are often buried in sediment, geophysical surveys can frequently reveal the outlines of buried features, provided that their properties (magnetism, conductivity, density, etc.) contrast sufficiently with the surrounding matrix, and that they are located vertically within the detection limits of the geophysical instrument. An excellent example is the buried harbor and urban area of Portus, where Simon Keay and colleagues integrated the results of magnetometry, resistance survey, ground-penetrating radar, and electrical resistivity tomography to reveal much of the plan of Rome's principal imperial port (Keay et al. 2009). These results were confirmed and expanded with programs of coring and excavation.
Comparable techniques can be used to detect features on the sea floor and buried in marine sediments beneath it, typically by towing geophysical equipment on a rig attached to a small boat. Side-scan sonar and sub-bottom profiler surveys are used to create bathymetric maps that measure depths of sediment and bedrock, giving indications of the shape and orientation of ancient harbor basins over time (Lafferty et al. 2006; Papatheodorou et al. 2001). Marine magnetic surveys are well established and have often yielded spectacular results where underwater features with strong magnetic signals are present. A magnetic survey off the coast of Caesarea Maritima in Israel — Herod's Roman harbor — has clarified a number of questions concerning its construction and use. The magnetic data revealed the hydraulic concrete foundations for the ruined harbor moles by detecting the volcanic ash (pozzolana) in the concrete as a strong magnetic anomaly (Boyce et al. 2004; Fig. 5.11). These results allowed new interpretations of the shape and construction of the now-submerged outer harbor, defined by the moles and additional breakwater structures. Detected in the same survey were numerous low-relief mounds with elevated magnetic signals, on the sea bed beyond the outer harbor. These features, subsequently investigated by jet probing and excavation, turned out to be ships' ballast piles, identified by a mixture of igneous and metamorphic boulders and fired pottery exhibiting strong magnetic properties (Boyce et al. 2009). It was even possible, through
5.11 Plan of submerged remains at Caesarea Maritima. From Boyce et al. 2004: 132, fig. 8. Reproduced with permission of Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
Careful mapping and examination, to hypothesize the formation process of the ballast piles by ships anchored around a designated anchorage point (Boyce et al. 2009: 1524). Ballast piles associated with Bronze Age pottery have recently been discovered off the Saronic Gulf coast at Kalamianos (Tartaron et al. 2011; see Chapter 7).
Geophysical techniques are nondestructive and non-intrusive, yet they can often supply rapid and reliable information about the location, depth, and nature of buried or submerged features without excavation. They may play the key role of guiding subsequent coring and excavation strategies, and more generally helping to form hypotheses and research questions. A geophysical project will more than pay for itself if it saves the investigator from a misguided research design. There are also disadvantages to geophysical surveys. There is no chronological control on the stratigraphy and archaeological features they detect, and the interpretation of anomalies often involves a high degree of subjectivity if their forms and signals are not transparently characteristic of known features. Ground truthing, in the form of excavation, coring, or other means of direct examination, is usually required to verify the identity of potential archaeological features. The entire enterprise of archaeological geophysics relies on a high level of expertise and expensive equipment that may not be easily available or affordable. Nevertheless, geophysical surveys are indispensable for the investigation of buried harbors and submarine features.
Coastal stratigraphy is the central concept of the geoarchaeological method, which entails direct observation of the geological record to locate, characterize, and reconstruct physical evidence of natural and anthropogenic processes that contribute to the long-term evolution of coastal environments. As we have seen, observations of the modern surface can be misleading or ambiguous in their relationship to the past, but all major processes that generate change (cited above) leave a record in local sediments that can be decoded by careful analysis. Ideally, one would excavate a number of sections of the vertical and horizontal dimensions of coastal and underwater sediments, but this approach is rarely feasible in terms of resources (including time and money) and permissions. Thus, geological core drillinG7 Is the method of choice to obtain sediment samples for analysis. The decision about where to sample and how many cores to take is a critical aspect of the research design. Although it is obvious that enhancing the resolution of the study, that is, by increasing the number of cores and decreasing the spatial interval at which they are taken, should lead to higher confidence in the results, given the usual constraints a well-rationalized sampling design is of the utmost importance. Moreover, no coring program, no matter how large or well designed, will provide all the answers hoped for, but will generate new questions that can only be addressed with further research. A perfect illustration is the decades of coring work dedicated to reconstructing the marine embayment and coastal paleogeographies of ancient Troy (Kraft, Kayan et al. 2003; Kayan et al. 2003). Hundreds of cores have now been taken and analyzed from the plain around Hisarlik, yet although the general outlines of the evolution of this coastal landscape are reasonably well understood, the details of interpretation continue to be debated and new questions remain to be addressed.
Many macroscopic attributes of the core sample are described in the field, using one of a number of recording systems (e. g., Folk 1980). In the lower Acheron River valley of southern Epirus, Mark Besonen and colleagues recorded lithology, grain-size distribution, color when wet using the Munsell soil color chart, sediment consistency, plant and animal macrofossils, pedogenic characteristics (structure, sesquisoxide/reduction mottling, and calcium carbonate filaments or nodules), and chance finds such as pottery fragments (Besonen et al. 2003: 209). The depth of the core varies with the equipment used and the nature of subsurface layers encountered. Hand-augering is the conventional technique, because the instrument is portable and widely owned by earth science departments and private geological firms. With hand-operated equipment, it is not uncommon to reach impenetrable stony layers well before the maximum length of the auger. More elaborate power corers generally do not have this limitation (Kayan et al. 2003: 382—84), but their use is far more expensive and they may not be readily available in country. Once the attributes of the core are described, all or part of each sediment column is packed in aluminum foil or some other protective material for transport to the laboratory.
World History
