Abstract
The multidisciplinary research described here shows how archaeologists can help reconstruct past seismic episodes and understand the subsequent relief operation, rehabilitation, and reconstruction processes. In October 1522, a major earthquake and landslide struck the then capital of the Azores, Vila Franca do Campo, 1500 km from the European mainland. Damage was extensive, destroying key monuments, affecting most of the inhabited area, and leaving few survivors among the early colonists. The results from twenty-six archaeological trenches, geological and geoarchaeological investigations, and documentary analysis are reviewed here. Distinctive archaeological deposits are identified and explained, using the high density of artefacts and the erosional contact between the landslide and the pre-1522 palaeosol to reconstruct the episode in detail.
Highlights
On 22 October 1522, a powerful earthquake struck the island of São Miguel in the Azores archipelago (Carmo et al, 2013)
Most of what is known about medieval and early modern tectonic hazards and secondary hazards like landslides has been reported by historians and earth scientists
Despite truncation or removal in some areas, we found evidence for the landslide in fourteen of our twenty-six trenches
Summary
On 22 October 1522, a powerful earthquake (magnitude 5.7–6.7) struck the island of São Miguel in the Azores archipelago (Carmo et al, 2013). 1522 earthquake and landslide in his account of the history and geography of the islands, Saudades de Terra (Frutuoso, 1998; see Rodrigues, 1991) This description, written fifty years after the event, is complemented by nine seasons of unpublished excavations between 1967 and 1981 by Manuel de Sousa d’Oliveira (Bento, 1989). These will be discussed in a separate article Beneath these occupation layers, micromorphological analysis in Trench 4 identified the lowermost part of the pre1522 topsoil (the upper part being truncated) as a medium-brown silt-loam (Figure 5; Supplementary Material 2). Micromorphological analysis in Trench 4 identified the lowermost part of the pre1522 topsoil (the upper part being truncated) as a medium-brown silt-loam (Figure 5; Supplementary Material 2) This contained minute organic fragments, plant phytoliths, and minute fragments of charred wood and seeds. In the adjacent Trench 25, Furnas C pumice had been reworked and interleaved with volcanic beach sands, probably by storm events that pre-dated 1522 (Figure 6)
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