Human occupation and geomorphological evolution of the Thessaloniki Plain (Greece) since mid Holocene Matthieu Ghilardi a, * , Eric Fouache a , Franc ¸ois Queyrel b , George Syrides c , Konstantinos Vouvalidis c , Ste ´phane Kunesch d , Mixalis Styllas c , Stathis Stiros e a University of Paris 12 Val de Marne, De ´partement de Ge ´ographie, EA 435 e UMR 8591, 61 Avenue du Ge ´ne ´ral de Gaulle, 94010 Cre ´teil, France b Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, INHA, 2 rue Vivienne, 75002 Paris, France c Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Department of Geology, Thessaloniki, Greece d Laboratoire de Ge ´ographie Physique Pierre Birot, UMR 8591, Meudon, France e University of Patras, Department of Civil Engineering, Geodesy Laboratory, Patras, Greece Received 31 October 2006; received in revised form 24 January 2007; accepted 25 February 2007 Abstract The plain of Thessaloniki is an important area from a historical standpoint. Numerous reigns and empires have occupied the area, leaving behind numerous archaeological remains. The literature and historical evidences show that the city of Pella was located near the sea and its harbor was the starting point of various conquests of famous kings such as Philip the 2nd and Alexander the Great. At present, the ancient capital is located 28 km inland the large fertile plain of Thessaloniki. Palaeogeographic and palaeoenvironmental studies encourage the idea of a fast infilling of the plain between the 5th century BC and the 5th century AD. Twentieth century authors attest to this, but there are contradictory scenarios due to varying interpretations of literature sources. This research offers a new perspective and understanding of the evolution of the Thessaloniki plain based on chronostratigraphical evidences. Historical references of Herodotus, Livy, and Strabo were used to establish the relations between human occupation and landscape evolution. Crossing these chronostratigraphical data with archaeological evidences and literary sources, it was possible to reconstruct shoreline displace- ments and landscape evolution during the last 5 millennia. Ó 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Aliakmon River; Axios River; Geomorphology; Greece; Holocene; Palaeogeographic reconstruction; Pella; Thessaloniki Plain 1. Introduction The plain of Thessaloniki is an area with intense human occupation since prehistoric times. Since the early Neolithic times, settlements in the western part of the plain have been established (Rodden and Wardle, 1996). The settlements of Nea Nikomedia and Angelochori attest to a human occupation since circa 6230 BC (Rodden and Wardle, 1996). Tribes of farmers were the first inhabitants of the area; subsequently, realms and empires succeeded and dominated the area from Macedonian times until the Ottoman period. The Macedonian realm, with kings Philip the 2nd and Alexander the Great, was the most famous settlement in the area, leaving behind many archaeological remains such as cit- ies and roads. The discovery of ancient Pella’s ruins by Petsas in the 1960s (Petsas, 1978; Akamitis et al., 2004) and Vergi- na’s tombs by Andronikos in the late 1970s (Andronikos, 1984, 1993) reveal the historical importance of the changing morphology of the area. Until today, there is a lack of chronostratigraphic evidence to reconstruct the historical developments in the region vis-a `- vis the changing landscape. Only Bottema who analyzed two cores for paleoenviron- mental purposes during the mid-1970s conducted some dating. In a complementary study led by Albanakis et al. (1993) and * Corresponding author. Tel.: þ33 6 1026 0864. E-mail address: matthieughilardi@wanadoo.fr (M. Ghilardi). 0305-4403/$ - see front matter Ó 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.jas.2007.02.017 Journal of Archaeological Science 35 (2008) 111e125 http://www.elsevier.com/locate/jas