Human-Environment Interactions in the Southern Tyrrhenian Coastal Area: Hypotheses from Neapolis and Elea-Velia

Abstract

This chapter focuses on human-environment interactions in two archaeological sites of the Greco-Roman period located along the western coasts of southern Italy. In both areas the landscape was characterized by a rich vegetation cover. The chapter concerned different aspects of both the natural and human landscape and involved researchers in geological, environmental and archaeological sciences. The main goal was to reconstruct the ways and times of environmental changes and to understand their causes. For this purpose three steps in the evolution of these two coastal sectors were chosen, representing the main detectable changes in the environmental features. The first step concerns the landscape setting prior to Greek colonization in the first millennium BC; the second step concerns the Greco-Roman period; while the third step focuses on the Late Ancient period, from the third century AD onwards. Keywords:archaeological site; Elea-Velia ; Greco-Roman period; human-environment interactions; Neapolis