Abstract
Geoarchives in ancient settlement sites and their environs bear valuable information about Holocene landscape evolution and human–environment interactions. During the last six millennia, sea‐level and coastline changes have had a significant impact on coastal settlements, some of which even had to be relocated. This paper reveals new insights into the spatio‐temporal development of the Lycian city of Limyra. Selected sediment cores were analyzed using a multiproxy approach, combining sedimentology, geochemistry, micropaleontology, and 14C dating. When the postglacial sea‐level rise decelerated, a coastal barrier and a deep lake, presumably a lagoon, evolved after the mid‐Holocene. The siltation history of the lake is complex: three coastal peat layers (mid‐4th millennium BC, end of 3rd/beginning of 2nd millennium BC, beginning of 1st millennium BC), indicate periods of semiterrestrial conditions. That they are sandwiched by lake sediments is consistent with new expansion phases of the lake, most likely triggered by coseismic subsidence. There is evidence of a former lakeshore, dated to between 1400 and 1100 BC, with an intentionally deposited layer of anthropogenic remains, now at 5.5 m below the surface. In the mid‐1st millennium BC, the lake silted up, river channels evolved, and people started to settle the area of the later city of Limyra.
Highlights
During the Greco‐Roman period, many ancient settlements were situated along the coasts of the Mediterranean Sea
Four master cores (Lim 4, 12, 13, and 14) were chosen from Limyra and its environs to decipher the different facies of the Finike plain
Considering the present position of the three peats and their 14C age estimates in coring Lim 12, the relative sea level was at −5.90 m around 3700–3500 BC, at −2.30 m around 2100–1800 BC and at −1.00 m around 1050–900 BC
Summary
During the Greco‐Roman period, many ancient settlements were situated along the coasts of the Mediterranean Sea. The Finike plain is bordered by the Burdur–Fethiye fault zone, which is one of the major faults in Turkey (Hall et al, 2014; Figure 1) generating earthquakes greater than 5.0 (Richter scale; Glover & Robertson, 1998). The so‐called Ptolemaion, located in the lower city, belongs to this group of impressive structures (Figure 2) It was set up by the Egyptian dynasty of the Ptolemies in the first half of the 3rd century BC; due to its excellent craftsmanship, it has to be regarded as one of the most outstanding monuments from this period in Asia Minor (Stanzl, 2012; Stanzl, 2016).
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