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Pollen analysis of the ship site of Pisa San Rossore, Tuscany, Italy: the implications for catastrophic hydrological events and climatic change during the late Holocene

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Abstract

In 1998, an ancient shipping wharf was brought to light in Pisa, Italy. The shipwrecks found there showed human activity from the Etruscan to the late Roman Empire periods. Sandy sediments burying the ships and related materials show four main periods of catastrophic floods separated by thin muddy layers pointing to phases between flooding episodes. Pollen analyses in these fine grained deposits showed: 1) significant percentages of Abies and Fagus during the pre-Roman period; 2) elements of mixed oak woodland together with hygrophilous plants in pollen spectra dominated by herbs, in the Roman interflood deposits. On the whole, the pollen data show a vegetational change which may be attributed to different climatic conditions, supporting the hypothesis that the Roman period was warmer, even though a significant human influence cannot be excluded. Numerous fresh water genera suggest that the area was a poorly drained alluvial plain. Integration between pollen and sedimentological analyses allows some inferences on the dynamics of the warm Roman period and indicates that the warm climate was punctuated by century-scale hydro-climatic crises triggering catastrophic floods.

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Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank C. Montanari (University of Genova) and L. Sadori (University of Roma) for the critical reading of the text, and also the reviewers for their suggestions which improved this paper. They also thank the “Ministero per i Beni e le Attività culturali – Fondi Lotto” and the University of Florence for their financial support.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Dipartimento di Biologia Vegetale, University of Florence, Via G. La Pira 4, 50121, Firenze, Italy

    Marta Mariotti Lippi, Cristina Bellini & Chiara Trinci

  2. Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra, University of Florence, Via G. La Pira 4, 50121, Firenze, Italy

    Marco Benvenuti & Mario Sagri

  3. Soprintendenza ai Beni Archeologici per la Toscana, Via della Pergola 65, 50124, Firenze, Italy

    Pasquino Pallecchi

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  1. Marta Mariotti Lippi
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  2. Cristina Bellini
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  5. Pasquino Pallecchi
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Correspondence to Marta Mariotti Lippi.

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Communicated by J.-L. de Beaulieu

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Lippi, M.M., Bellini, C., Trinci, C. et al. Pollen analysis of the ship site of Pisa San Rossore, Tuscany, Italy: the implications for catastrophic hydrological events and climatic change during the late Holocene. Veget Hist Archaeobot 16, 453–465 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00334-006-0070-x

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