Impacts of sea-level rise on prehistoric coastal communities: land use and risk perception during the Mesolithic-Neolithic transition in central Mediterranean Spain

Abstract

Mapping methods to represent the interplay between environmental changes and prehistoric communities were investigated through a case study of the Mediterranean Iberia coastal landscape in the context of Holocene sea-level rise. We developed a four-dimension GIS-based analysis of the environmental evolution based on primary data acquisition (fieldwork, laboratory analyses) and spatial modeling of paleo-Digital Elevation Models (paleoDEMs). Five paleoDEMs were computed, representing key stages of the morphogenetic evolution between 9000 and 7000 years ago. Second, each paleoDEM was used as input in a Site-Catchment Analysis (a 1- and 2-hour walking distance from the archeological sites). Finally, we provide a bird-view visualization of the landscape evolution, centered on the perspective of an individual located at the archeological sites. By shifting the focus to the human scale, this GIS-assisted mapping allows refining assessments of the impact of environmental changes on settlement and subsistence patterns during the Mesolithic and Early Neolithic periods.

Keywords

• Geographic information system
• digital elevation model
• paleogeography
• coastal archeology
• Mesolithic
• environmental risk