HOLOCENE LANDSCAPE EVOLUTION AT THE GARIGLIANO RIVER MOUTH.

Abstract

The Garigliano Plain (between Latium and Campania) is characterized by the presence of wetlands behind the most recent beach ridge. Although modern cartography displays small lakes and the Greek and Latin authors describe a marshy environment close to the river mouth, it is not easy to define the nature of these wetlands and the relationship between the environment and the human presence. This research aims to reconstruct the evolution of the coastal landscape with a multidisciplinary approach that combines the typical analysis from archaeology, topography, geomorphology and palynology. In this paper we have focused on pollen analyses, that reveal an environment characterized by wetland vegetation. In the whole pollen diagram the anthropogenic indicators are very low so the cultivated fields appear to be far from the studied area.

Keywords

• geoarchaeology
• landscape evolution
• Minturnae
• palynology
• sedimentology
• delta plain
• wetland