Page 88 - TINA Dergi Sayi 09

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Denizcilik Arkeolojisi Dergisi

The fact that the water depth in Gökçeada-Bozcaa- opinion that Mesolithic and Neolithic communities
da-Beşige triangle is lower than 100 m indicates that must have used the shoreline to reach marine resourc-
Gökçeada and Bozcaada were connected with the main- es, due to the changing oceanographic conditions in the
land during the last glacial period about 20,000 years North Aegean with the opening of the strait, there may
ago, i.e. they were not islands. At the beginning of the be human traces along the paleo shoreline. In this re-
Holocene, it seems that Bozcaada and the small islands gard, paleomorphology of Çanakkale coastline in the
in the north were connected with the mainland (Fig. 2a), Holocene was mapped and it is revealed that a large
and with the sea level rise, a great amount of areas were amount of land areas were inundated.
flooded (Fig. 2b). Since Holocene period, the coastline In the study area, we revealed that the most remark-
transgression has occurred about 12 km at Beşige, and 35 able change in the shoreline was off Beşige and Boz-
km at Bozcaada. On the other hand, since the continental caada, where the coastline transgression about 35 km.
shelf is narrow on the southern coasts of Çanakkkale and The rocky coastline has changed little since the early
the Gallipoli peninsula, a relatively small amount of the Neolithic, however coastline change was relatively
coastline transgresson has occurred and a relatively small high in areas where the river deltas are located. It is
area has been flooded (Fig. 2). The separation of Gökçea- now evident that Bozcaada and the nearby islands were
da from Limni Island to its southwest is associated with connected to the mainland during the Neolithic period,
the sea level rise following the Holocene period. and represent potential sites for archaeological investi-
In a short-term marine geophysical study carried out gations.
in the potential area, which was determined based on the A preliminary geophysical study was conducted on a
paleogeography, by collecting side-scan sonar and high potential area determined using an archaeological ap-
resolution seismic data simultaneously. Paleo terrestrial proach that involved paleomorphological mapping and
surface that formed during the low position of sea lev- evaluating geographical conditions. Holocene sefdi-
el (erosional surface, Fig. 3a, red level), and overlying ments about 10 m thick were deposited on the erosional
Holocene sediments are clearly distinguished at 3.5 kHz surface, but no buried anomalies were detected. How-
seismic profile taken in the East-West direction at Beşige ever, side-scan sonar images revealed that the region
Cape. Holocene sediments accumulated on the erosional have been affected by intense anchoring and trawling
surface at a thickness of about 10 m (Fig. 3a). According activities.
to initial observations, no buried anomaly could be de- With this preliminary study, which was performed
tected on the erosional surface, which could be a strong for the first time on the continental shelf in Turkey, we
reflector with scattering characteristics . At the same developed a methodology for further studies to be con-
24
time, there was no geological feature such as a paleo-riv- ducted investigating the traces of Mesolithic and Neo-
erbed. The seismic profiles indicate that the sediment car- lithic communities that settled in the region after the
ried by the Karamenderes river is probably accumulated natural events that took place in the North Aegean, and
in this area and that this area is relatively less affected by for examination of the effects of the sea level changes
the Strait flow. on human beings.
The side-scan sonar record taken on the same runline ACKnOwLeDGementS
shows that the sea floor has a flat sandy structure (Fig. This study was conducted with permission from the
3b). Altough there is no visible anomaly on the surface, Ministry of Culture and Tourism and financial sup-
this zone has been affected by intensive anchorage and port from the Ministry of Development. Thanks to
trawling activities. the Ministry representative Ihsan Tercan; team mem-
RESULtS bers Cebrail Baydan, İrfan Yıldız, Selman Kahraman,
We have presented a preliminary study conducted Göksu Tatoğlu; Özkan Özel, Orhan Atgın and Buğu
to determine potential submerged settlements on the Doran, SEISLAB, and to all of the staff of R/V K.Piri
continental shelf as a consequence of post-Holocene Reis for their contributions to data collection, and to
sea level rise in the Çanakkale region. Based on the referees for their valuable contributions to the article.

23 The chronology of the Neolithic Period varies in the Aegean region. Therefore, our study was based on the beginning of Holocene
Period while reconstructing the paleo-coastline; using the curves of Lambeck and purcell (2005), it is assumed that the sea level
was ~ 55 m lower than the current position 12,000 years ago, and an approximate bathymetry contour was taken into consideration.
Vertical tectonic mobility and sediment input were neglected when palaeogeography was mapped.
24 Gron, jorgensen and Hoffman (2007) managed to visualize acoustic reflections of archaeological remains embedded into sediment
using a high-resolution marine seismic imaging method.
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