Journal article
Dredging and canal gate technologies in Portus, the ancient harbour of Rome, reconstructed from event stratigraphy and multi-proxy sediment analysis
A Lisé-Pronovost, F Salomon, JP Goiran, G St-Onge, AIR Herries, JC Montero-Serrano, D Heslop, AP Roberts, V Levchenko, A Zawadzki, H Heijnis
Quaternary International | Elsevier | Published : 2019
Abstract
© 2018 Elsevier Ltd and INQUA Ancient harbours are rich archives of human-environment interaction. However, dating harbour deposits and correlating their stratigraphy is a major challenge because of typically high sedimentation rates over short periods and possible curative dredging events. Portus, the maritime harbour of Rome at the height of the Roman Empire, was a port complex composed of basins and canals connecting the commercial harbour to Rome via the Tiber River. Sediment core CPS1 in the narrowest of these canals, Canale Traverso, is located centrally in what was the capital city's commercial hub and contains a continuous harbour depositional record with average sedimentation rates ..
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Grants
Awarded by Young Scientist Program of the Agence Nationale de la Recherche
Awarded by European Research Council ("Roman Mediterranean Ports program" under the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme - FP7/2007-2013/ERC)
Awarded by Australian Institute of Nuclear Science and Engineering
Funding Acknowledgements
We thank Prof. Simon Keay and the Soprintendenza Speciale per il Colosseo, il MNR e l'Area Archeologica di Roma, Sede di Ostia for collaboration and access to the site; the drilling team of Guillaume Lopez, Regis Batteux, and Eric Semin (CETE Marseille); and Jacques Labrie and Alexandra Leclerc for laboratory work at ISMER and INRS-ETE. Thanks to the editors and reviewers for invaluable and constructive reviews. This work was supported by a postdoctoral fellowship of the Fonds de recherche du Quebec pour la nature et les technologies (FRQNT) and La Trobe University Transforming Human Societies RFA and DVCR Research Fellowships to A. Lise-Pronovost, and by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) Discovery grants to G. St-Onge and J.-C. Montero-Serrano. The Young Scientist Program of the Agence Nationale de la Recherche (bib_ANR_2011ANR 2011 JSH3 002 01) and the European Research Council ("Roman Mediterranean Ports program" under the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme - FP7/2007-2013/ERC grant agreement no 339123) provided financial and logistical support. Fieldwork was supported by a Geological Society of America graduate scholarship, and radiocarbon dating and particle grain size analysis were supported by a research grant from the Australian Institute of Nuclear Science and Engineering (AINSE ALNGRA15016) to A. Lise-Pronovost. We also acknowledge the help of radiocarbon laboratory staff and financial support for the Centre for Accelerator Science at ANSTO, where the measurements were done, through the Australian National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS).