Reconstructing marine sedimentation rates in the Aegean Sea during the Holocene: Evi-dence for early anthropogenic environmental change?

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Jörg Pross
• Subject Area: Palaeontology
• Term: from 2019 to 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 429864870

In light of the increasing manifestation of anthropogenic change both in terrestrial and marine environments, the question to what extent already early, pre-industrial societies have altered their physical environment has increasingly shifted into the limelight of geoscientific and archeological research. Against this background, the here proposed study aims to reconstruct marine sedimentation rates in near-coastal settings of the Aegean Sea during the Holocene. The establishment of highly resolved radiocarbon chronologies for two high-deposition-rate sediment cores from the eastern and western Aegean Sea will allow to reconstruct to what extent sediment-deposition rates in these settings have been influenced by human impact on the hinterland over the course of the Holocene. A particular focus will be on identifying when early societies in the Aegean region started to noticeably impact and alter their environments.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• Co-Investigator: Professorin Dr. Stefanie Kaboth-Bahr