Search results for "Geoarchaeology"
showing 10 items of 18 documents
ÉTUDE GÉOARCHÉOLOGIQUE D'UN LIEU DE CULTE ROMAIN IMPLANTÉ SUR UNE SOURCE THERMALE : LE SANCTUAIRE DE JEBEL OUST, TUNISIE
2015
The ancient site of Jebel Oust (Tunisia) grew up around a hot spring, which was a focus for worship at the start of the first millennium AD, until it dried up in Late Antiquity. A geoarchaeological study of the hydrological functioning of the spring, catchment mechanisms for hot water and associated anthropic infrastructure makes it possible to trace the environmental history of the sanctuary/hot spring complex and draws on the example of Jebel Oust to provide new evidence supporting the identification of a water cult in the Roman era.
Geoarchaeology as a tool to understand ancient navigation in the northern Persian Gulf and the harbour history of Siraf
2020
International audience; Historical texts and archaeological studies attest to the maritime and trade importance of the Persian Gulf since the Sassanid Empires. Nonetheless, there is a paucity of data regarding ancient navigation and the reasons for a shift in m aritim e trade from the western (e.g. Shatt-al-Arab) to eastern (Siraf) Persian Gulf by the Abbasid dynasty. For som e scholars, Siraf was occupied between 360 and 977 CE, after which tim e an earthquake en-trained the dem ise of the city. However, it is unclear when Siraf was founded and how natural navigation conditions changed for ocean-going vessels in harbours of the NW Persian Gulf. To address this knowledge gap, we here presen…
Human occupation and environmental change in the western Maghreb during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) and the Late Glacial. New evidence from the Ib…
2019
With the onset of the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), hunter-gatherers of the so-called Iberomaurusian techno-complex appeared in what is now the Mediterranean Maghreb. During a period of about seven thousand years, these groups left sandy occupation layers in a limited number of archaeological sites, while at the beginning of Greenland Interstadial (GI) 1, the sudden shift towards the deposition of shell-rich sediments and the increase in number of sites document clear changes in subsistence strategies as well as occupation density. It is highly likely that these shifts in human behaviour are related to paleoenvironmental changes in the area, which, so far, are poorly documented in geological …
Geoarchaeological evidence for the abandonment of the Roman baths at Thermae Himerae
2020
Fondata alla fine del V sec. a.C. dai Cartaginesi, Thermae Himeraeae divenne colonia romana alla fine del I sec. a.C. e fu dotata degli edifici tipici di una città romana: foro, anfiteatro, acquedotto e bagni. Questi ultimi furono costruiti ai piedi della collina su cui sorge la città, sfruttando due sorgenti termali. Note fin dal XVI secolo, le terme furono studiate da Houel e Palmeri, ma solo nel 1817 il Gargotta condusse uno scavo nella piazza antistante, affermando che l’area centrale dell’edificio antico era occupata da una vasca circolare di ampie dimensioni. Solo alla fine del XIX secolo, durante la costruzione del nuovo Grand Hotel delle Terme, venne messa in luce la maggior parte d…
Un site de plein air du Mésolithique ancien à Tramoyes « Sous le Port » (Ain)
2016
Der Fundplatz wurde am heute trockengelegten Lac des Echets lokalisiert, in einem sandigen Kontext alluvialen Ursprungs, der sich den OSL-Datierungen zufolge im jüngeren Spätglazial abgelagert hatte. Die ergrabene Fläche ist zu klein, um die räumliche Organisation der durch verstreute Geröll- und Feuersteingeräte materialisierten Spuren zu erfassen. Der größte Teil der Funde wird dem Frühmesolithikum des Typs Beuronien zugeordnet, zu dem einige Elemente des älteren Sauveterrien kommen. Die 14C-Datierungen ordnen diese Belegungsphasen in das mittlere Präboreal ein. Die technotypologischen Merkmale der Steinartefakte zeigen, dass beim Abbau vorwiegend Lamellen produziert werden, daneben auch …
Querns and mills during Roman times at the northern frontier of the Roman Empire (Belgium, Northern France, Southern Netherlands, Western Germany): U…
2016
International audience; This paper presents the results of a multi-disciplinary provenance study of querns and millstones during the Roman period (1st-4th century CE) in the northern part of the Roman Empire (provinces of Gallia Belgica and Germania Inferior). Comparative petrographical, mineralogical and geochemical analysis allowed an international team of archaeologists and geologists to identify the different raw materials used for the manufacturing of querns and millstones. As a result, (litho-) stratigraphic assignments as well as geological-geographical provenances are suggested or corroborated for the broad spectrum of these natural geo-materials. We give evidence for the exploitati…
A Taphonomic Perspective on Neolithic Beginnings: Theory, Interpretation, and Empirical Data in the Western Mediterranean
2001
The fills of caves and rockshelters generally comprise complex depositional palimpsests, making fine scale chronological resolution extremely difficult. Nevertheless, these settings remain very important in archaeology because they often preserve long records of cultural change. This is true for the initial appearance of food producing economies in the western Mediterranean. The chronologically ambiguous nature of cave and shelter deposits is one of the reasons for the continued debate over the processes responsible for the beginning of the Neolithic in this region. We employ taphonomic studies of the archeofaunal record from Mesolithic and early Neolithic cave and shelter sites in Mediterr…
Temple-complex post-dates tsunami deposits found in the ancient harbour basin of Ostia (Rome, Italy)
2015
Abstract Detailed geophysical and geoarchaeological investigations carried out in Ostia, ancient harbour of Rome, revealed two different generations of harbour basins and also proved the repeated impact of high-energy wave events on the study area. West of Ostia, at the southern bank of the Tiber, a lagoonal harbour existed from the 4th and 2nd cent. BC but was affected by strong siltation. At the same site, a river harbour was subsequently established from the 1st cent. AD onwards. Fluvial deposits of medieval age finally document Tiber river bank erosion affecting the abandoned site. Within the sedimentary record, distinct high-energy event deposits were found and seem to be related to ts…
The river harbour of Ostia Antica - stratigraphy, extent and harbour infrastructure from combined geophysical measurements and drillings
2018
Abstract We performed a combined geophysical and geoarchaeological survey of the harbour of ancient Ostia, Italy, to investigate the extent of the former harbour basin, the sedimentary infill and possible building remains around the harbour. Besides geoarchaeological results the paper highlights the advantage of combining vibracore drilling with different geophysical prospection methods, which are sensitive to different physical soil parameters. Geophysical methods applied were electrical resistivity tomography (ERT), ground penetrating radar (GPR) and seismics with shear and compressional waves. The extent and shape of the harbour basin were determined by ERT profiling. The ERT profiles we…
Climatic and anthropogenic influences on three burgundian watercourses : geoarchaelogy of crossing sites on Loire, Saône and Doubs during the Holocene
2015
A geoarchaeological study was led on four sections of the valleys of the Loire, Saône and Doubs rivers (Burgundy, France) in order to point out the factors influencing the alluvial dynamics on a multimillennial scale, and their effects on the preservation of archaeological information. Investigations started by roman and medieval remains of bridges discovered in active channels, were then carried out on larger parts of alluvial plains, and altogether allowed the evolutions of the channels during the Holocene period to be deducted. Various types of information on alluvial characteristics were crossed through time and space: ancient maps and XXth century or aerial photographs for centennial s…