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Relative sea-level changes in crete: reassessment of radiocarbon dates from Sphakia and west Crete1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 September 2013

Simon Price ,
Tom Higham ,
Lucia Nixon  and
Jennifer Moody
Simon Price
Affiliation:
Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford
Tom Higham
Affiliation:
Oxford Radiocarbon Accelerator Unit, Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art, University of Oxford
Lucia Nixon
Affiliation:
Magdalen College, Oxford
Jennifer Moody
Affiliation:
Classics Department, University of Texasat Austin
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Abstract

This article is concerned with the recognition and dating of Holocene relative sea-level changes along the coast of west Crete (an island located in the active Hellenic subduction arc of the southern Aegean) and in particular in Sphakia. Radiocarbon data for changes in sea levels collected and analysed previously must (a) be recorrected to take into account isotopic fractionation, and (b) recalibrated by using the new marine reservoir value. These new radiocarbon dates are analysed using Bayesian statistics. The resulting calendar dates for changes in sea level are younger than previously assumed. In particular the Great Uplift in western Crete in late antiquity must be dated to the fifth or sixth century AD, not to AD 365. Moreover, recent work on tectonics suggests that the Great Uplift need not have been accompanied by a catastrophic earthquake. Finally, we consider the consequences of the Great Uplift for some coastal sites in Sphakia.

Type
Articles
Information
Annual of the British School at Athens , Volume 97 , November 2002 , pp. 171 - 200
Copyright
Copyright © The Council, British School at Athens 2002

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References

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45 The authors of the various papers from which the radiocarbon data were obtained had suggested that the dates might be problematic (see notes and references to TABLE 2).

46 C. E. Buck, T. F. G. Higham, and D. J. Lowe, ‘Bayesian tools for tephrochronology’, The Holocene, forthcoming.

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50 The vivid description in Spratt 1865, ii. 244–6 of the difficulty of landing there still holds good today. The topography of the original beach is well illustrated in Pirazzoli 1999 (n. 11), 397 fig. 9.

51 A thick layer of sand has accumulated on both sides of the river; on the west side it is 2–3 m thick near the coast. This postdates the Roman period (Archaic–Classical and Roman graves were excavated beneath 1.50 m of sand: Tzedakis, I., ‘Δυτική Κρήτη’, A. Delt. 25. 2 (1970Google Scholar), Chron. 473; Davaras, K., ‘Δυτική Κρήτη’, A. Delt. 26. 2 (1971), Chron. 511Google Scholar). In the region of Kommos there was also a sudden deposit of sand after the Hellenistic period, after two millennia of gradual deposit (Gifford, n. 5). It is tempting (though Gifford does not do so) to relate this to the sudden 2 m uplift in the area between 100 B C and AD 200, which might have caused a tsunami. The same might be true for Agia Roumeli.

52 Cf. Moody, J., Nixon, L., Price, S., and Rackham, O., ‘Surveying poleis and larger sites in Sphakia’, in Cavanagh, W. G., Curtis, M. et al. (eds), Post-Minoan Crete (BSA Studies 2; London, 1998), 87–95, at P. 89Google Scholar.

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