Papers by Wouter van Gorp
TMA 57, 2017 29ste jaargang Prijs los nummer €12,-Het Tijdschrift voor Mediterrane Archeologie is... more TMA 57, 2017 29ste jaargang Prijs los nummer €12,-Het Tijdschrift voor Mediterrane Archeologie is een onafhankelijk tijdschrift dat aandacht besteedt aan actueel archeologisch onderzoek in de mediterrane wereld, in het bijzonder verricht vanuit Nederland en België. Het overnemen van artikelen is toegestaan mits met bronvermelding. Bijdragen van lezers kunnen al dan niet verkort door de redactie worden geplaatst. TMA verschijnt twee keer per jaar. Opgave kan schriftelijk of via onze website. Een abonnement kost €20,-. Studenten betalen €15,-(onder vermelding van studentnummer). Het abonnement loopt van 1 januari tot en met 31 december en wordt automatisch verlengd, tenzij een maand van tevoren schriftelijk is opgezegd.
Quaternary Science Reviews, 2016
The Gediz River, one of the principal rivers of Western Anatolia, has an extensive Pleistocene fl... more The Gediz River, one of the principal rivers of Western Anatolia, has an extensive Pleistocene fluvial archive that potentially offers a unique window into fluvial system behaviour on the western margins of Asia during the Quaternary. In this paper we review our work on the Quaternary Gediz River Project (2001-2010) and present new data which leads to a revised stratigraphical model for the Early Pleistocene development of this fluvial system.In previous work we confirmed the preservation of eleven buried Early Pleistocene fluvial terraces of the Gediz River (designated GT11, the oldest and highest, to GT1, the youngest and lowest) which lie beneath the basalt-covered plateaux of the Kula Volcanic Province. Deciphering the information locked in this fluvial archive requires the construction of a robust geochronology. Fortunately, the Gediz archive provides ample opportunity for age-constraint based upon age estimates derived from basaltic lava flows that repeatedly entered the palae...
The morphology of the Agro Pontino (Latina, Italy) has been greatly modified by the fascist recla... more The morphology of the Agro Pontino (Latina, Italy) has been greatly modified by the fascist reclamation (Bonifica), in particular by the subsequent soil subsidence due to the drainage of its peaty lowlands and by massive dredging and land raising. Obviously, this constitutes a strong bias for reconstructing the ancient landscapes. However, pre-reclamation maps can be used to address the problem. In particular, the 1930s maps made by the Italian Military Geographical Institute are of exceptional importance for both the reconstruction of prehistoric and historic landscape, and for detecting the more recent, human-induced changes in its morphology. Unfortunately, the datum of the maps is unknown. In this paper we try to estimate a standard Molodensky transformation to convert the map to the current projections, by surveying points which are unambiguously identifiable both in the terrain and on the maps.
Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research
CATENA, 2020
Land subsidence has played and is still playing a significant role in coastal wetlands worldwide ... more Land subsidence has played and is still playing a significant role in coastal wetlands worldwide and in palaeogeographical reconstructions of such wetlands. The varying thickness of compaction-prone sediments over a stable subsurface is a key factor in determining its magnitude and in locating the most affected areas. In the coastal low-lying Agro Pontino (Lazio, Italy), subsidence of the past 90 years has been mapped using historical elevation data. Due to the fortunate preservation of distal Avellino tephra (AV-tephra, ca. 1900 cal. BCE) within its marshy strata, discovered a decade ago, detailed palaeogeographical reconstruction of the landscape in preparation for an assessment of its land use suitability in the Early Bronze Age (EBA) was possible. Current altitude variations of water-lain tephra in lake areas assumed to be connected necessitated a closer look at its original deposition altitude and the role of post-depositional subsidence. Recent subsidence patterns proved very ...
PLOS ONE, 2019
In 2017, an excavation led by the Groningen Institute of Archaeology and in collaboration with th... more In 2017, an excavation led by the Groningen Institute of Archaeology and in collaboration with the Tor Vergata University of Rome, took place on two small islands in the Caprolace lagoon (Sabaudia, Italy), where Middle Bronze Age layers had previously been reported. Combining the results of an environmental reconstruction of the surroundings and a detailed study of the pottery assemblages, we were able to trace a specialised area on the southern island, in all probability devoted to salt production by means of the briquetage technique. The latter basically consists of boiling a brine through which a salt cake is obtained. The technique was widespread all over Europe, from Neolithic to Roman Times. Since the evidence points to an elite-driven workshop, this result has deep implications for the development of the Bronze Age socioeconomic framework of Central Italy. Pottery evidence also suggests that in the Bronze Age sites along the Tyrrhenian coast of Central Italy where briquetage has already been hypothesised, more complex processes may have taken place. On the northern island, we collected a large number of so-called pedestals, which are characteristic features of briquetage, while chemical analyses point to salt or fish sauce production, like the roman liquamen, in a Middle Bronze Age domestic context.
IpoTESI di Preistoria, 2019
RIASSUNTO A seguito della sintesi pubblicata sulle indagini archeologiche nel territorio di Sezze... more RIASSUNTO A seguito della sintesi pubblicata sulle indagini archeologiche nel territorio di Sezze, condotte dall'Università di Groningen sotto l'egida del Progetto della Regione Pontina (PRP), questo documento discute la metodologia e i primi risultati di due progetti di ricerca sul campo più recenti nel quadro del PRP, entrambi finanziati dall'Organizzazione olandese per la ricerca scientifica (NWO): 1) l'Avellino Event Project (AVP) delle Università di Groningen e Leiden che studia gli effetti distali della grande eruzione del Vesuvio risalente all'età del bronzo sull'ambiente umano della pianura di Fondi e della pianura Pontina. 2) il progetto dei Centri Minori che studia lo sviluppo degli insediamenti di Forum Appi e Ad Medias lungo la Via Appia in relazione allo sviluppo della campagna romana. Entrambi i progetti contribuiscono in modo significativo alla ricostruzione a lungo termine del paesaggio umano nella pianura di Sezze e aprono prospettive su ulteriori lavori interdisciplinari.
Annals of Geophysics
UvA-DARE (Digital Academic Repository) A rare Mid-Würmian lithoid tuff in the Agro Pontino graben... more UvA-DARE (Digital Academic Repository) A rare Mid-Würmian lithoid tuff in the Agro Pontino graben (Southern Lazio, Italy) and its identification as an Albano 5-7 related distal tephra deposit (40-36 kaBP): characteristics, provenance and palaeogeographical implications
Earth Surface Processes and Landforms
This article has been accepted for publication and undergone full peer review but has not been th... more This article has been accepted for publication and undergone full peer review but has not been through the copyediting, typesetting, pagination and proofreading process which may lead to differences between this version and the Version of Record. Please cite this article as
Quaternary Science Reviews
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 Intern... more This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International licence Newcastle University ePrints-eprint.ncl.ac.uk
TMA54, 2015
Around 1995 BC, during the Early Bronze Age, a giant eruption of Mount Vesuvius buried a flourish... more Around 1995 BC, during the Early Bronze Age, a giant eruption of Mount Vesuvius buried a flourishing landscape of villages and fields in the plains to the north and east of the volcano under more than a meter of ash. Inhabitants of Campanian sites such as Nola ('the Bronze Age Pompeii') could barely escape with their lives. Italian archaeological research since the 1980s has conclusively shown that the population of the Campanian plain did not fully recover for several centuries after this so-called 'Avellino Event'. Oddly, no one has yet wondered where the substantial Early Bronze Age population of Campania could have flown to, and what impacts it would have had there. Given the topography of centralsouthern Italy, the most likely refuge area will have been to the north, in the coastal zone of what is now South Lazio. Here, two wetland coastal plains-the Fondi basin and the Agro Pontinocould have provided the space and resources to absorb the fleeing population. Long-standing Dutch research programs in these areas have already shown that both have a continuous sedimentary record that covers the period of interest and that, crucially, includes the Avellino volcanic ash as a chronological marker. This means that archaeological and palaeo-ecological observations of the requisite high chronological resolution and quality can be made to identify changes occurring immediately after the eruption. Complementing current research efforts in Campania by Italian geologists and archaeologists, this program aims to demonstrate and document any significant demographic, environmental and cultural impacts that would result from the presence of the postulated Early Bronze Age refugee population in South Lazio. Three post-doctoral researchers, experienced in interdisciplinary geoarchaeological studies, will investigate these interrelated impacts and assess the multiple lines of evidence needed to substantiate or disprove our central hypothesis. 1. Distal Palaeoecological Impacts of the Avellino Event. A 3 year fte post-doc project (Leiden University, Faculty of Archaeology; supervision by prof. Bakels): dr Marieke Doorenbosch. 2. Distal Archaeological Impacts of the Avellino Event. A 3 year fte post-doc project (Groningen University, Faculty of Arts; supervision by prof. Attema): dr Luca Alessandri. 3. Reconstructing the Buried Early Bronze Age Landscape of South Lazio. A 2 year fte post-doc project (Groningen University, Faculty of Arts; supervision by prof. Sevink): candidate to be sought in an open call. For much of the time, these three post-docs will be working closely together to develop the research program, conduct joint fieldwork in Italy, and publish jointly. Post-doc 2 will have the additional task to liaise for the team with heritage managers, local authorities and researchers in Italy, as well as further publications in Italian journals. Post-doc 3 will be responsible for the development and maintenance of the team's digital geodata (GIS) infrastructure. This core research team will be assisted throughout by a part-time student assistant (0.05 fte) who will be responsible for the team's archiving and publicity. For specialist analyses, the team will be able to call on both in-house and external expertise. A lab technician, based at Leiden University and supervised by dr Field, will be contracted at certain stages of the research for the analysis of plant macrofossils (4 months at 0.5 fte), and Italian university laboratories will be contracted to conduct 'flanking' archaeometric studies for the petrographic analysis of pottery and the isotope analysis of shells and bones.
The EGU General Assembly, 2015
The presence of the Early Bronze Age Avellino (AV) tephra in the Holocene lacustrine deposits of ... more The presence of the Early Bronze Age Avellino (AV) tephra in the Holocene lacustrine deposits of the Agro
Pontino and Fondi basin provides a unique opportunity to reconstruct the Holocene depositional environment
at the time of AV-tephra deposition. Marine terraces of the last Pleistocene transgression have
been consolidated by soil formation and incised during the last glacial. This created a gully landscape in
the Fondi basin and in the southeastern Agro Pontino. The inland central part of the Agro Pontino was
drained by one major gully. At the final part of subsequent Holocene sea level rise, beach ridges closed
the southeastern marine lagoons, creating a lacustrine and marshy environment. Shortly after, the
Avellino eruption deposited its sandy tephra in these freshwater environments. By comparing altitudes
of the AV-tephra in different environments two major implications emerge. First, at those locations
where the AV-tephra is underlain by thick Holocene peaty and clayey deposits, significant subsidence
occurred, while this has been limited at locations where the Pleistocene marine terrace occurs close to
the surface. This subsidence is independently checked by comparing a modern LiDAR DEM and a detailed
DEM from 1928. Second, the altitude of the AV-tephra reflects sea level in the coastal positions
around 1.5 to 2m a.s.l., while the only gully draining the lacustrine and marshy inland Agro Pontino
was blocked around 0.5m a.s.l. by the expanding sediment wedge of the Amaseno River, the major
draining axis of the Agro Pontino. The AV-tephra layer will continue to play an important role in regional
geological, palaeoenvironmental and geo-archaeological research.
Geomorphology, 2012
... of extension and bound the southern side of the present day graben, most likely originated wi... more ... of extension and bound the southern side of the present day graben, most likely originated within the past 5 Ma ( [Sarıca, 2000], [Bozkurt ... that towards the top it may drain into a standing water body, the calcareous mud matrix perhaps indicating deposition more akin to debris flow ...
Earth Surface Processes and Landforms, 2016
Fluvial landscapes respond non-linearly to damming. Until now, research to these phenomena has fo... more Fluvial landscapes respond non-linearly to damming. Until now, research to these phenomena has focussed on fieldwork studies. Using a Landscape Evolution Model (LEM) to systematically understand fluvial response to damming has not been done yet. LEM LAPSUS is capable of dealing with depressions in a natural way and has recently been enhanced to incorporate 3D geology and to identify newly deposited sediments. The aim of this study was to model landscape evolution using LAPSUS in a small artificial catchment, that experienced base level change due to natural-damming. A rectangular catchment of 2100 x 6000 m with a 20 m resolution was given a net annual rainfall of 300 mm for a period of 10000 year. Two different landscapes, having a high erodible substrate and a low erodible substrate were modelled. For both landscapes, Three scenarios were evaluated: (i) dam and substrate having equal erodibility; (ii) dam being 10 times more erodibile than substrate; and (iii) dam being 10 times le...
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Papers by Wouter van Gorp
Pontino and Fondi basin provides a unique opportunity to reconstruct the Holocene depositional environment
at the time of AV-tephra deposition. Marine terraces of the last Pleistocene transgression have
been consolidated by soil formation and incised during the last glacial. This created a gully landscape in
the Fondi basin and in the southeastern Agro Pontino. The inland central part of the Agro Pontino was
drained by one major gully. At the final part of subsequent Holocene sea level rise, beach ridges closed
the southeastern marine lagoons, creating a lacustrine and marshy environment. Shortly after, the
Avellino eruption deposited its sandy tephra in these freshwater environments. By comparing altitudes
of the AV-tephra in different environments two major implications emerge. First, at those locations
where the AV-tephra is underlain by thick Holocene peaty and clayey deposits, significant subsidence
occurred, while this has been limited at locations where the Pleistocene marine terrace occurs close to
the surface. This subsidence is independently checked by comparing a modern LiDAR DEM and a detailed
DEM from 1928. Second, the altitude of the AV-tephra reflects sea level in the coastal positions
around 1.5 to 2m a.s.l., while the only gully draining the lacustrine and marshy inland Agro Pontino
was blocked around 0.5m a.s.l. by the expanding sediment wedge of the Amaseno River, the major
draining axis of the Agro Pontino. The AV-tephra layer will continue to play an important role in regional
geological, palaeoenvironmental and geo-archaeological research.
Pontino and Fondi basin provides a unique opportunity to reconstruct the Holocene depositional environment
at the time of AV-tephra deposition. Marine terraces of the last Pleistocene transgression have
been consolidated by soil formation and incised during the last glacial. This created a gully landscape in
the Fondi basin and in the southeastern Agro Pontino. The inland central part of the Agro Pontino was
drained by one major gully. At the final part of subsequent Holocene sea level rise, beach ridges closed
the southeastern marine lagoons, creating a lacustrine and marshy environment. Shortly after, the
Avellino eruption deposited its sandy tephra in these freshwater environments. By comparing altitudes
of the AV-tephra in different environments two major implications emerge. First, at those locations
where the AV-tephra is underlain by thick Holocene peaty and clayey deposits, significant subsidence
occurred, while this has been limited at locations where the Pleistocene marine terrace occurs close to
the surface. This subsidence is independently checked by comparing a modern LiDAR DEM and a detailed
DEM from 1928. Second, the altitude of the AV-tephra reflects sea level in the coastal positions
around 1.5 to 2m a.s.l., while the only gully draining the lacustrine and marshy inland Agro Pontino
was blocked around 0.5m a.s.l. by the expanding sediment wedge of the Amaseno River, the major
draining axis of the Agro Pontino. The AV-tephra layer will continue to play an important role in regional
geological, palaeoenvironmental and geo-archaeological research.