Suchergebnisse

Appendix detailing the molluscan counts for the deep cores. ; This project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7-2007-2013) (Grant agreement No. 323727). ; peer-reviewed

The appendix details the results of the granulometry of the deep cores. ; This project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7-2007-2013) (Grant agreement No. 323727). ; peer-reviewed

This project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7-2007-2013) (Grant agreement No. 323727).

This project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7-2007-2013) (Grant agreement No. 323727).

The appendix consists of the deep core borehole logs. ; This project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7-2007-2013) (Grant agreement No. 323727). ; peer-reviewed

This project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7-2007-2013) (Grant agreement No. 323727).

Molluscs often have quite specific environmental requirements (Evans 1978, 82; Giusti et al. 1995; Schembri et al. 2018). Many species require only a few square metres of habitat, so they are excellent micro-habitat indicators. Their shells can be dispersed, for instance by running water, but generally, compared with other biotic materials used in palaeoecology (such as pollen grains or seeds), they do not disperse far from their life habitat and therefore provide important indications of local environments. Alkaline sediments, which are very common in the Maltese Islands, will preserve molluscan shells and other calcareous biogenic material over thousands of years. This makes the analysis of molluscan shells potentially a very important tool for the reconstruction of past environments in Malta. Geologists and archaeologists recognized the value of molluscs as palaeoenvironmental indicators as early the first quarter of the nineteenth century ad (Conybeare 1824; Preece 1998; Evans & O'Connor 2005, 41). Molluscan analysis is still, however, comparatively rare as a palaeoenvironmental tool, and for instance is less commonly used than pollen analysis (e.g. Preece 1998, 158; Fenech 2007). In the Maltese Islands, the application of the technique has been limited and there has been no comprehensive palaeoenvironmental study using molluscan analysis. Trechmann (1938), Giusti et al. (1995) and Hunt (1997) used the sporadic occurrence of land snails in Maltese Quaternary deposits as an indication that these had accumulated in open, exposed conditions. The highly cemented Quaternary deposits precluded anything other than the production of species lists by these authors. Pedley (1980) suggested a brackish depositional environment for the Pleistocene Fiddien Valley Tufa on molluscan evidence. Fenech (2007) and Marriner et al. (2012) analysed cores taken in Holocene estuarine deposits at Marsa and Burmarrad, respectively. These studies showed the progress of the Holocene marine transgression and the infilling of the estuaries, and Fenech (2007) also showed the persistence of open, exposed terrestrial environments in the catchment of the Marsa estuary over c. 7000 years. At the Neolithic Xagħra Brochtorff Circle (Schembri et al. 2009) and the Neolithic and later temple site at Tas-Silġ (Fenech & Schembri 2015), molluscan analysis demonstrated long histories of anthropogenic disturbance and sparse vegetation since the later Neolithic, but a considerable portion of these studies was done on shells recovered by troweling and dry sieving with a large fraction and therefore subject to a form of taphonomic bias caused by the exclusion of most very small taxa. Analysis of a cave fill near Victoria on Gozo, based on assemblages recovered by sieving, identified a phase of spectacular erosion caused by Classical period agricultural practices, followed by a more stable grazed landscape in the Medieval and post-Medieval periods (Hunt & Schembri 2018). Inevitably, the research done before the start of the FRAGSUS Project was very partial in coverage. The environmental history of the Maltese Islands was still largely unknown. [excerpt] ; This project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7-2007-2013) (Grant agreement No. 323727). ; peer-reviewed

This project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7-2007-2013) (Grant agreement No. 323727).

This project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7-2007-2013) (Grant agreement No. 323727).

There is now a large degree of synergy exhibited by the various classes of palaeoenvironmental data investigated through the FRAGSUS Project on Malta and Gozo and the direct inter-linkages and associations of aspects of the environment with human activities during the last 8000 years. The geological setting and well dated palynological, molluscan and soil/sediment data present a background picture of vegetational and landscape change throughout the Holocene, with some very specific data on trajectories of clearance, erosion and farming activities in various valleys of the Maltese landscape. Nested within this broader framework, there is an immense amount of more specific data on the development of and changes in palaeosols, the frequencies and types of soil erosion and formation of valley fill sequences, as well as the dynamics of near-shore, valley and plateaux landscapes through prehistoric and historic times in both Malta and Gozo. Within these, there is an exceptional amount of data concerning the impacts of the first farming communities and the resilience of these island landscapes during the Neolithic period between the seventh and third millennia bc. The following summative interpretational sections attempt to draw out the main themes and trajectories of landscape change that have occurred during the Holocene in the Maltese archipelago. ; This project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7-2007-2013) (Grant agreement No. 323727). ; peer-reviewed

This project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7-2007-2013) (Grant agreement No. 323727).

This project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7-2007-2013) (Grant agreement No. 323727).

Adequate absolute dating is critical to understanding the past, especially where data concerning environmental changes from different sites are being compared, as chronology is often the only reliable way to compare evidence from multiple contexts. The archaeological chronology of Malta is becoming increasingly well resolved and this sets up a challenge – how can we obtain comparable high-resolution chronologies of environmental change in the Maltese Islands? The Maltese landforms pose significant barriers to achieving this goal, as much of the available palaeoenvironmental evidence is limited to cores in alluvial or shallow-marine sediments, which contain materials that have been subject to much re-working through time. In this chapter, we introduce and discuss the various techniques that the FRAGSUS Project has brought to bear on this problem, and review the main approaches used. [excerpt] ; This project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7-2007-2013) (Grant agreement No. 323727). ; peer-reviewed