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Sabkhas are key landforms along the southern coast of the Arabian Gulf and represent modern analogues for depositional and diagenetic processes controlling properties and quality of ancient hydrocarbon‐bearing carbonates. While previous investigations of coastal sabkhas in Qatar have mainly focused on dolomitization processes, presented here is one of the first studies reconstructing facies changes and coastal formation in great detail. In the sabkha of Al‐Kharayej (Gulf of Salwa), fifteen different facies types were distinguished based on twelve sediment cores, two trenches, as well as grain‐size distribution, X‐ray powder diffraction, thin section and microfossil analyses. Age estimates were based on seventy‐eight 14C‐AMS and optically stimulated luminescence data. The sabkha parasequence comprises pre‐transgressive dune sands, a thin, transgressive layer of reworked dune material, a mid‐energy open‐coast to open‐lagoon facies, a low‐energy lagoon facies, saline lake facies (salina: swallow‐tail gypsum and gypsum mush) and the supratidal sabkha characterized by diagenetic overprinting (buckled gypsum crusts and halite crust). Transgressive marine flooding created open‐coast to open‐lagoon sedimentation after ca 7000 cal yr bp, followed by initial spit formation at the northern sabkha end at the beginning of the relative sea‐level highstand (6000 cal yr bp). This main outer spit prograded southward and a more narrow, low‐energy spit, diverted landward, closing a small lagoon in the northern sabkha 4500 to 4000 cal yr bp. The falling relative sea‐level and longshore drift intensified the southward extension and widening of the main spit, and the main lagoon became more shallow. At 2000 to 1500 cal yr bp, the outer spit had almost closed the main lagoon, leading to salina and, finally, sabkha conditions. It is shown how specific local conditions (coastline orientation; wind, wave, tidal energy, longshore drift; depositional relief; sediment sources) created a spit‐controlled sabkha that is genetically distinct from the classical model of shore‐perpendicular accumulation of coarser sediment during high tides or storms., Universität zu Köln, ExxonMobil Research Qatar, Ruprecht Karls Universitaet Heidelberg

International audience; Pendant les trois derniers millénaires, Ainos (moderne Enez, dans la province turqued’Edirne, en Europe) a été un des carrefours commerciaux de la Méditerranée orientale, entrel’Asie Mineure, l’Europe du Sud et les Balkans. Située sur une île qui est définitivementdevenue, au Néolithique, une presqu’île, entre les embouchures du fleuve Hèbre (en turcMeriç) et la mer Égée, Ainos/Enez a contrôlé tout le trafic Ouest-Est le long de la côteégéenne, mais aussi Nord-Sud, le long de la vallée du fleuve et de ses affluents. À l’époqueantique et médiévale, le delta de l’Hèbre n’avait pas encore atteint la ville elle-même, qui étaitentourée par la mer. Des bancs de sable ont progressivement fermé les golfes autour de lapresqu’île, donnant naissance à des lagunes propices à l’installation des ports, des salines etdes pêcheries. Cette importance stratégique d’Ainos est confirmée par les auteurs anciens etmodernes, mais aussi par les découvertes archéologiques extrêmement riches, surtout dans lesnécropoles fouillées par Sait Başaran autour de la ville.Dans cet exposé, nous évoquerons l’histoire d’Ainos, reconstituée à partir de sourceslittéraires confrontées à la documentation archéologique et géoarchéologique. Dans lapremière partie, nous nous concentrons sur l’espace urbain (l’« Acropole » et l’espace habitéautour), depuis le VI e siècle av. J.-C. à l’époque ottomane. Dans la seconde partie, nousprésentons les espaces frontaliers : les fortifications et quelques découvertes des nécropoles,actuellement à l’étude au Musée d’Edirne. Dans la dernière partie, nous synthétisons nosrésultats sur les ports urbains et extra-urbains, et sur les routes reliant Ainos (et Gala Gölü) aureste du monde.

Νησί των Νεολιθικών χρόνων, χερσόνησος από την Εποχή του Χαλκού, η πόλη του Αίνουυπήρξε ένα από τα κύρια εμπορικά σταυροδρόμια του Βορείου Αιγαίου, στις εκβολές τουΈβρου, μεταξύ της ελληνικής θάλασσας και της θρακικής ενδοχώρας. Οι ετήσιες τουρκικέςαρχαιολογικές ανασκαφές (ξεκίνησαν το 1973, υπό τη διεύθυνση του Sait Başaran για σχεδόν40 χρόνια, έως το 2019) έχουν αποκαλύψει αρκετά στοιχεία της χώρας (νεκροπόλεις, δρόμοι,οχυρώσεις). Η γεωαρχαιολογική έρευνα, που ξεκίνησε από τους Helmut Brückner, WolfgangRabbel και Thomas Schmidts στο 2011-2012, συνεχίστηκε τώρα στο πλαίσιο μιας γαλλικήςδιεθνούς αποστολής που συντονίστηκε από την Anca Dan, παρήγαγε δεδομένα για τη θέσηκαι την χρονολογίαν των λιμανιών της πόλης και για τις περιβαλλοντικές αλλαγές στηνεπικράτεια. Σε αυτή την εργασία, θα παρουσιάσουμε τα κύρια αποτελέσματα των κοινών μαςέργων σχετικά με τη φυσική εξέλιξη του ακρωτηρίου του Αίνου και του δέλτα του Έβρου,καθώς και για τις ανθρώπινες επιπτώσεις στην περιοχή., Island in Neolithic times, peninsula from the Bronze Age onwards, Ainos has been one of themain hubs of the Northern Aegean, at the mouth of the Hebros, between the Greek sea and theThracian hinterland. Annual Turkish archaeological excavations and surveys (started in 1973,directed by Sait Bașaran for nearly 40 years, until 2019) have revealed several components ofthe chora (necropoleis, roads, fortifications). The geoarchaeological research, initiated byHelmut Brückner, Wolfgang Rabbel and Thomas Schmidts in 2011-2012, now continued inthe frame of a French international mission coordinated by Anca Dan, produced data for thelocation and evolution of the city’s lagoonal harbours as well as for the environmentalchanges in the territory. In this paper, we will present the main results of our joint projectsabout the natural evolution of the Ainos promontory and Hebros delta, as well as about thehuman impact in the region.

Ostracods as bioindicators are extremely useful for reconstructing palaeoenvironment and palaeoclimate and can also indicate the provenance of sediments and materials, for example, in studies on ancient commercial networks. Ostracods are small crustaceans that live in almost all aquatic habitats, both natural and man‐made. Due to their calcitic carapace, they have high fossilization potential, and their use in geoarchaeology has been steadily increasing during the last decades. Their small size needs mean that only small volumes of sediment samples are needed, and species‐specific ecological tolerances and preferences allow detailed palaeoenvironmental reconstructions. Typical methods of their application are palaeoecological analyses of associations based on ecological information and taphonomy, morphometric variability and stable isotope and chemistry analyses of their shells. The present paper aims to present an overview of applications of non‐marine ostracods in (geo‐)archaeological research, recommending sampling and analytical techniques for addressing archaeological research questions on palaeoclimate, habitat and landscape changes, water availability and quality, land use and other anthropogenic impacts, the provenance of materials and commercial networks to promote the application of Ostracoda in geoarchaeology/environmental archaeology., International Max Planck Research School for the Science of Human History

International audience; The archaeological research started in Ainos in 1971-1972, under the direction of Arfif Erzen;it continued during 1978-1993, with the participation of Sait Bașaran, who directed theresearch from 1994 until 2019. During these decades, Ainos transformed itself from a simpletoponym, known from some ancient literary and epigraphic texts, published from the 19 thcentury onwards, to one of the best known archaeological sites in European Turkey. Thenearby Hoça Keșme, discovered by Sait Bașaran and his family and excavated by MehmetÖzdoğan, is now the most important Neolithic site in SE Europe. Ainos’ Greek, Roman andEarly Byzantine funerary zones (the so-called Çakıllık, the Su Terazisi and the Taşaltınecropoleis), excavated in very difficult conditions, due to the rising water table, have filledtwo rooms with exceptional finds in the Edirne Museum. Enez’s Kale (“Acropolis”) revealedthe traces of the oldest Greek habitation and is now open to the public, with a fully restored“Fatih” or “Hagia Sophia” Mosque.Sait Bașaran put Ainos on the map of the studies on Thrace, publishing or co-publishingnearly all the important historical and archaeological studies about this area. He opened hisexcavation to international and interdisciplinary projects, supported by the DeutscheForschungsgemeinschaft (SPP Häfen; 2012-2017) and by the French National ResearchFoundation and the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Mission d’Ainos; 2017-2021), whichmade significant progress in identifying Ainos’ topography, in particular the harbours andtheir chronology, from Greek Antiquity to late Ottoman times. Geoelectric profiles combinedwith geomagnetic and georadar surveys gave hints for the shape of two ancient harbourbasins, besides several other anchoring points. The sediment cores in the basins as well as onformer beaches show the evolution of the ancient maritime gulf south of Ainos into the Taşaltıand Dalyan lagoons. Through geochemical analyses, combined with the study of pollen andmicrofauna, our team was able to reconstruct the ecological history of these lagoons, and toidentify and date the human actions which transformed them first into harbours and later intosimple fishing basins.In this paper, we present a survey of the most important archaeological and geoarchaeologicalfinds and hypotheses concerning Ainos: after a general presentation of the historical andarchaeological data about the city (with a particular focus on the Roman time), we try toreconstruct the city’s connectivity, by discussing the Roman roads and harbour evidence,including the preliminary results of the 2021 campaign.

The Paläontologische Gesellschaft (Palaeontological Association) has been awarding the title Fossil of the Year since 2008. Every year an important fossil is chosen to promote palaeontology in the public. This year, after presenting several vertebrate, invertebrate and plant fossils, a microfossil was selected for the first time. Arguments for the selection of the foraminifer Neoflabellina reticulata are: - Neoflabellina reticulata is a beautiful fossil. - Neoflabellina reticulata is an index fossil of the Maastrichtian, thus underlines the utility of microfossils in biostratigraphy. The Maastrichtian is the last stage of the Cretaceous and ends with the best known mass extinction event. - Neoflabellina reticulata lived in marine shelf environments below the storm wave base, i.e., it can be used as palaeoecological indicator. - Neoflabellina reticulata can be found in practically all chalk environments of the Maastrichtian and is documented from such well known sites as the chalk cliffs of Rügen island. - The first description of Neoflabellina reticulata was published by August Emil Reuss in 1851, in the period of the establishment of micropalaeontology as a science. - The locus typicus of Neoflabellina reticulata are the chalk marls of Lemberg, todays Lviv in Ukraine. This underlines the connectivity of science. The Fossil of the Year was presented in a public lecture in the Pommersches Landesmuseum in Greifswald 22 May 2022. Here, we provide more information on our poster.

Before the closing of its lagoons and the progradation of the Hebros delta, Ainos took advantage of an almost insulate position, which made it one of the main hubs between the Greek Aegean and the Thracian hinterland. Annual Turkish archaeological excavations (since 1973) and international geoarchaeological research (since 2011) have revealed several components of the polis’ territory (necropoleis, roads, anchoring sites, fortifications) and offered information about the ecological impact of the Greek, Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman occupation on the natural environment. The campaigns of the last three years – organized through the cooperation of the German Universities of Cologne and Kiel with the French CNRS and the Turkish Ministry of Culture in the project LEGECARTAS (Lectures géoarchéologiques des cartes anciennes) – brought more light on the use of the city’s shores. We are now able to point to a precise location for the main harbour of the city (based on literary sources, geomorphological and geophysical evidence). We can also formulate scenarios for the use of the lagoons at the SE and NE of the city as fisheries and salines (by comparing them with other sites, studied by archaeologists on the shores of the Mediterranean and of the Atlantic, and by suggesting identifications with the names transmitted by ancient and medieval sources). This paper will present a short synthesis of these recent hypotheses, which can serve as a basis for the reconstruction of Ainos’ environmental history.

International audience

Systematic archaeological exploration of southern Qatar started in the 1950s. However, detailed local and regional data on climatic fluctuations and landscape changes during the Holocene, pivotal for understanding and reconstructing human–environment interactions, are still lacking. This contribution provides an overview on the variability of geomorphic environments of southern Qatar with a focus on depression landforms, which reveal a rich archaeological heritage ranging from Palaeolithic(?) and Early Neolithic times to the Modern era. Based on a detailed geomorphic mapping campaign, sediment cores and optically stimulated luminescence data, the dynamics of riyad (singular rawdha; shallow, small-scale, sediment-filled karst depressions clustering in the central southern peninsula) and the larger-scale Asaila depression near the western coast are studied in order to put archaeological discoveries into a wider environmental context. Geomorphic mapping of the Asaila basin shows a much greater geomorphic variability than documented in literature so far with relict signs of surface runoff. An 8 m long sediment core taken in the sabkha-type sand flats of the western basin reveals a continuous dominance of aeolian morphodynamics during the early to mid-Holocene. Mounds preserved by evaporite horizons representing capillarites originally grown in the vadose zone are a clear sign of groundwater-level drop after the sea-level highstand ca. 6000–4500 years ago. Deflation followed the lowering of the Stokes surface, leaving mounds where the relict capillarites were able to fixate and preserve the palaeo-surface. Abundant archaeological evidence of Early and Middle Neolithic occupation – the latter with a clear focus inside the central Asaila basin – indicate more favourable living conditions than today. In contrast, the sediment record of the investigated riyad in the south is very shallow, younger and controlled by surface discharge, deflation and the constantly diminishing barchan dune cover in Qatar over the Middle and Late Holocene. The young age of the infill (ca. 1500 to 2000 years) explains the absence of findings older than the Late Islamic period. Indicators of current net deflation may relate to a decrease in surface runoff and sediment supply only in recent decades to centuries. In the future, geophysical prospection of the riyad may help to locate thicker sedimentary archives and the analysis of grain size distribution, micromorphology, phytoliths or even pollen spectra may enhance our understanding of the interplay of regional environmental changes and cultural history.