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Paleo-Hazards in the Coastal Mediterranean: A Geoarchaeological Approach

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Landscapes and Societies

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Human societies in coastal zones are arguably the populations most prone to the danger of geological hazards and the need to devise strategies to live with them. Not only do settlers in coastal zones confront, the major geological problems of earthquake and volcanic eruption as do inland societies, but any such hazards are compounded by the situation of life at the interface between land and sea. Tsunamis are an obvious link between classical geological hazards and the ocean, but slower connections are also encountered, for example sea-level rise associated with the wasting away of the Pleistocene ice sheets. Slow, neotectonic changes along coasts are also significant, and starting in the Neolithic, human activities become a notable forcing factor in this zone.

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Morhange, C., Marriner, N. (2010). Paleo-Hazards in the Coastal Mediterranean: A Geoarchaeological Approach. In: Martini, I., Chesworth, W. (eds) Landscapes and Societies. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-9413-1_14

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