E1: Transformations in early Greek societies and landscapes

Fig. 1. View of lower terrace at Aigeira and the Corinthian Gulf. (Peloponnese, Greece; photo: T. Kessler)

Project E1 aims to reconstruct environmental changes and their influence on cultural development in the region around the Gulf of Corinth during the Bronze Age/Iron Age transition (12th to 8th century BCE) based on a complementary study of sedimentary and archaeological archives, i.e. by applying geochemical, sedimentological and pedological proxies to sequences from selected valleys on the northern Peloponnese, Aetolia, and Boetia and by compiling and utilizing a survey of archaeological data from relevant regions around the Gulf of Corinth.

Fig. 2. PhD student Joana Seguin collects climate data from a data logger at Lake Stymphalia. (photo: I. Unkel)

Fig. 3. Intensive discussion of the project members during the field campaign in the Stymphalia area. (photo: H.-R. Bork)

Research Activities 2016-2019

Publications:

Knitter, D., Günther, G., Hamer, W., Seguin, J., Unkel, I., Keßler, T., Weiberg, E., Duttmann, R., Nakoinz, O. 2019. Land Use Patterns and Climate Change. a modeled scenario of the Late Bronze Age in Southern Greece. Environmental Research Letters 14 (12), 125003. DOI

Seguin, J., Bintliff, J. L., Grootes, P. M., Bauersachs, T., Dörfler, W., Heymann, C., Manning, S.W., Müller, S., Nadeau, M.-J., Nelle, O., Steier, P., Weber, J., Wild, E.-M., Zagana, E., Unkel, I. 2019. 2500 years of anthropogenic and climatic landscape transformation in the Stymphalia polje, Greece. Quaternary Science Reviews 213, 133-154.  DOI

Unkel, I. (in press). Archäohydrologie und Nachhaltigkeit. Der Einfluss des Wasserdargebots auf frühe Gesellschaften, in:
Schliephake, C., Sojc, N., Weber, G. (eds). Nachhaltigkeit in der Antike: Umweltverhalten im Altertum, Geographica Historica. Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag.

Weber, J., Schwark, L., 2019. Epicuticular wax lipid composition of endemic European Betula species and its application to chemotaxonomy and paleobotany. BioRxiv. DOI

Weiberg, E., Unkel, I., Kouli, K., Holmgren, K., Avramidis, P., Bonnier, A., Dibble, F., Finné, M., Izdebski, A., Katrantsiotis, C., Stocker, S.R., Andwinge, M., Baika, K., Boyd, M., Heymann, C., 2016. The socio-environmental history of the Peloponnese during the Holocene: Towards an integrated understanding of the past. Quaternary Science Reviews 136, 40-65. DOI