Islands in the Stream: (geo)archaeology of river- and seascapes

Islands are tangles in networks which bring together ancient communities on land-, river- and seaways. Even if the ancient people did not have precise words in order to distinguish between islands and peninsulas, they were aware of the implications of insularity, which played a crucial role in the Greek “colonization” as well as in the Roman expansion. The ancient Greeks are the ones who created the principles of the isolario, by listing the big islands of the Internal Seas at the end of their periplous. The insular spaces, however, are so complex that their study requires methods from a whole range of disciplines, starting with Classics (philology, history, epigraphy, numismatics) and continuing with archaeology and archaeometry as well as with geosciences (geophysics, geomorphology, hydrology) and biosciences (paleobotanics, palynology). More than the hinterland, the ancient islands are fragile environments, under the influence of sea-level changes, tectonics (subduction and uplifting), erosion and sedimentation. Only by combining data from prospections, drilling and excavations, we can identify and explain the evolution of some lived spaces on islands, both natural or artificial. In this panel, we present some of the new archaeological and geo-bio-archaeological data, ranging from the Black Sea to the Eastern and Western Mediterranean, and illustrating actual trends in insular and peninsular archaeology.

• Anca Dan (CNRS-ENS, AOROC), Luc Lapierre, Luminița Preoteasa, Alfred Vespremeanu-Stroe, Helmut Bruckner, Hannes Laermanns, Mikheil Elashvili, Revaz Papuashvili, Hans-Joachim Gehrke, Udo Schlotzhauer, Denis Zhuravlev: Islands in the Stream: the geoarchaeology of lived spaces in the ancient Black Sea deltas
• Alfred Vespremeanu-Stroe (University of Bucharest), Iulian Bîrzescu, Luminița Preoteasa: Histria and its territory between landscape changes and human activity
• Alexandra Bivolaru (Ca' Foscari, University of Venice), Christophe Morhange (University of Aix-Marseille, EPHE Paris): Dynamiques paléo-environnementales et métamorphoses urbaines à Istros (7ème s. av. J.C. - 7ème s. apr. J. C.)
• Francesca Trapani (Gruppo archeologico Capo Pachino, Italy): Il capo Pachino nell'Antichit`a: spazio vissuto e spazio immaginato tra archeologia e mito
• Gianluca Calà (Italy): Dal sito al sito. La necropoli proto arcaica di Gela, il contesto, lo scavo e la musealizzazione delle pire funebri
• Anca Dan (CNRS-ENS, AOROC), Wolfgang Rabbel, Helmut Brückner, Ercan Erkul, Simon Fischer, Martin Thorwart, Tina Wunderlich, Lyudmila Shumilovskikh, Anna Pint, Martin Seeliger, Sait Bașaran, Chrysa Karadima, Domna Terzopoulou, Luc Lapierre: Islands in the Stream: the geoarchaeology of lived spaces in the Hebros delta (Northern Aegean).