Page 35 - TINA Dergi Sayi 12

TINA

Maritime Archaeology Periodical

That means that during this period (around 4,000- od at a depth of 7 m below today’s surface (present sea
3,000 years ago) the relative sea level was several level) indicating that the site was occupied until Troy VI
meters lower than today. It appears that the sea level (Fig. 3) . Other classical examples include the ancient
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was still 2 to 3 meters lower than today 3000 years ago, cities and harbors of Miletus and Priene .
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while it was still rising during the colonization of peo- During the past 3,000 years, there have been minor
ple who migrated from Greece and Aegean islands to climatic fluctuations. The Roman Warm Climate and
the Anatolian coasts. subsequent Little Ice Age are among the most remark-
The Archaic, Hellenistic, and Roman periods corre- able ones (Fig. 4) . Nevertheless, no concrete data is
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spond to the last phase of the final rise to the present lev- available indicating their impact on sea level changes.
el (Fig. 4). Coastal structures from these periods are also On the other hand, it is known that all of the ancient
located 1 to 2 m below sea level in many places, either settlements in the Aegean have experienced devastating
before or behind the shore. The main reason why those earthquakes from time to time since western Anatolia is
coastal structures, primarily harbors, became unusable an active tectonic region. However, there is also no data
and are now typically located inland far from present showing that delta development has been influenced by
shore (e.g. Miletus, Priene, Ephesus), is not associated tectonic movements during the past 3,000 years, due to
only with sea level change, but rather the ongoing ad- the much slower course of such movements compared to
vance of the delta due to alluvial deposits (Fig. 8) . climatic changes. Consequently, alluvial deposits appear
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In conclusion, there has been no encroachment by the to have been the main factor effective in shaping low
sea towards the land despite a slight rise in sea level coastal zones during this recent period. Theoretically it
during the past 3,000 years, because the amount of allu- can be assumed that climatic and tectonic factors were
vial deposits has compensated for the rise of the sea and also involved in a way in this process. However, it may
continued to fill up the shore. Thus, the shoreline has be misleading to distinguish these minor effects on a
continued to advance seaward. In addition to the natural delta shore, which is a quite dynamic area of sedimenta-
erosion which makes up the alluvial deposits, increased tion, or to extrapolate these effects. For now, it is more
human-made erosion may have been a factor in coastal appropriate to evaluate results of studies that have been
zones throughout history. For example, increased de- carried out using different methods on a local scale.
struction of natural vegetation cover, and particularly of The deltas of rivers such as the Büyük Menderes
forests related to requirements for wood fuel and driven River and the Küçük Menderes that occupy large tec-
by increasing population, as well as the enhanced wel- tonic depressions have reached deeper open sea where
fare of that population, have always been highlighted as they are at the scale of mountainous areas (Fig. 1).
important factors in erosion . Consequently, they will advance much more slowly
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On the other hand, as delta plains advancing to sea from now on. As a different example, in the north the
level have been covered with flood alluvium over time, advance of the Karamenderes Delta in front of Troy
the ancient settlements behind the shores have remained ended when it reached the Çanakkale Strait (Darda-
under the present sea level. For example, the foundation nelles), because the strait current swept the advancing
of the Artemis temple in Ephesus and the architectural alluvial deposits into the Aegean Sea. Furthermore,
remains from the Hellenistic-Roman periods behind it, large dams that have been constructed for several rea-
which were built on the shore of the sea that encroached sons at present contain the water and alluviums from
upon the Selçuk plain, are 5 m deeper than today’s sur- the upstream basins, substantially reducing the amount
face at the present sea level (Fig. 3) . The same is valid reaching the shore. Therefore, the advance of the del-
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for the Limantepe-Klazomenai remains in Urla (Figs. 5 ta has been substantially slowed down, and the delta
and 7). On the northern skirt of Troy, situated on the shores have even begun an erosion rather than a depo-
edge of a 30 m high plateau ridge in the northern Aege- sition process. One of the most striking examples is
an, there are remains on the coastal plain from this peri- the Altınova coast in the delta of the Madra River .
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22 KRAFT et al 2001, MÜLLENHOFF 2005, BRÜCKNER 2019.
23 STOCK et al 2016.
24 KRAFT et al 2001.
25 KAYAN 1996.
26 MÜLLENHOFF 2005.
27 ERLAT 2009.
28 KAYAN-VARDAR 2007.

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