Landscape Development and Changing Environment of Troia (North-western Anatolia)

Abstract

Troia, the epic city of ancient times, has a unique geographical position at the entry of the Çanakkale Strait. This area consists of Upper Miocene shallow marine sediments, which constitute a low horst–graben system. Between plateau ridges about 50–100 m high, the lower course of the Karamenderes (ancient Scamander) River flows in an alluvial plain. During the Holocene sea-level rise, marine intrusion transformed this part of the valley into a marine embayment. In this area, the relative sea level reached its present position ca. 7000–6000 years ago, and the coastline arrived close to the southern end of the embayment. Then, deltaic progradation processes of the Karamenderes River dominated the embayment filling, leading the coastline to reach the west of Troia ca. 4000 years ago. A 2–3 m sea level fall during the Late Bronze Age (LBA) was probably caused by the acceleration of the deltaic progradation. Later, slightly rising sea reached to the present level again around the time of the Emperor Augustus (27 BC to 14 AD). However, alluviation compensated this small sea-level rise, and deltaic progradation continued slowly to reach the coastline to the Çanakkale Strait.