How rising seas transformed dry land into Venice lagoon — SkimNews
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- Samuele Ongaro and colleagues at the University of Southampton combined seismic data with sedimentary cores from coastal basins in northern Italy, Slovenia and northern Croatia to model regional sea level and reconstruct past landscapes over the past 10,000 years.
- Venice lagoon was once dry land extending more than 30 miles from the coast, according to results published in Quaternary Science Reviews.
- Trieste previously sat in an area of hills overlooking swamps and lagoons, the reconstruction shows.
- Sea level began rising in fits and starts just over 10,000 years ago, at times climbing as fast as 25mm a year.
- Mesolithic hunter-gatherers shifted their hunting and fishing activities as the rising seas forced them to adapt to a rapidly changing environment.
- The northern Adriatic passed through three distinct phases of the most dramatic change, followed by roughly 6,000 years of relative stability that supported settlement formation and the advent of farming in today's landscape.
Why it matters: Where sea level rose as fast as 25mm a year, Mesolithic hunter-gatherers had to keep relocating hunting and fishing activity rather than settle permanently. The 6,000 years of relative stability that followed is what made the settlements and farming in the modern Adriatic landscape possible.
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