Pre-Historical Submerged Settlements in the Sea of Marmara Coasts

Abstract

Parallel to the development of underwater archeology, underwater sunken cities have been discovered in many parts of the world.These discovered settlements provide us with many archaeological data, as well as many scientific data such as geologi-cal, geomorphological, climatological, oceanography. Thanks to these data, besides the information about past lives, changes in sea and lake levels have shed light on many unknowns such as the reasons for these changes, floods, drought, earthquakes and volcanic activities in the past. In this context, the archaeological artifacts and structures obtained from the Marmara Sea and its surroundings, Istanbul - Selimpaşa Mound, Istanbul - Fenerbahçe Bay, Çanakkale - Işıldak Tepealtı Mound, Marmaray / Yeni-kapı Excavations, Avşa Island Archeological Underwater Studies were examined. In addition to this examination, the geograph-ical locations of the artifacts in these settlements and the geoarchaeological characteristics of the area where they are located are also examined. In this way, not only the geoarchaeological features of the study area were revealed, but also the environmental conditions and sea level changes were tried to shed light. The settlements mentioned in our study provided important data on sea level changes. In the light of archaeological, geoarchaeological and climatological data, a new evaluation has been made by taking into account the other views on current sea level changes.