Natural environment and cultural landscape in the ancient Roman harbours (Tiber delta area, central Italy)

The sediments recovered from the Republican harbour of Ostia and from the Imperial harbour of Portus in the Tiber delta area (Rome, central Italy, Fig. 1) have been the subject of multidisciplinary analyses involving, among others, stratigraphy, palynology, ostracodology, geochemistry. The purpose of the study is investigating the natural environment and the cultural landscape in a marginal area such a river delta in an area under the influence of either climate/environmental changes or human impact. The river port of Ostia, according to the legend founded by Ancus Marcius (VII cent. BC), became insufficient for the Roman Empire. Therefore in 42 AD the Emperor Claudius built a northernmost basin and then Emperor Trajan expanded it, excavating an artificial basin, because the Claudius basin was prone to rapid silting. The area, once the port was abandoned evolved in an unhealthy swamp. Nowadays, due to the delta advancing, Trajan basin is a small lake, some kilometres far away from the

The sediments recovered from the Republican harbour of Ostia and from the Imperial harbour of Portus in the Tiber delta area (Rome, central Italy, Fig. 1) have been the subject of multidisciplinary analyses involving, among others, stratigraphy, palynology, ostracodology, geochemistry. The purpose of the study is investigating the natural environment and the cultural landscape in a marginal area such a river delta in an area under the influence of either climate/environmental changes or human impact. The river port of Ostia, according to the legend founded by Ancus Marcius (VII cent. BC), became insufficient for the Roman Empire. Therefore in 42 AD the Emperor Claudius built a northernmost basin and then Emperor Trajan expanded it, excavating an artificial basin, because the Claudius basin was prone to rapid silting. The area, once the port was abandoned evolved in an unhealthy swamp. Nowadays, due to the delta advancing, Trajan basin is a small lake, some kilometres far away from the coast. The sediments from Ostia (Republican – Renaissance age) were used to localize the ancient port. Pollen and ostracods have been useful to reconstruct water and terrestrial environments (1). The cores from the Claudius and Trajan harbour area form a composite record spanning from the early Imperial period to present. A mosaic of different environments followed one each other and the sediments recorded also particular events such as the catastrophic Renaissance (2,3) Tiber floods and different reclamation works. This is the first continuous composite record spanning more than two millennia in the region of Rome.