Extreme-wave events in the Guadalquivir estuary in the late Holocene: Paleogeographical and cultural implications

Research in the Guadalquivir estuary and its environs has revealed evidence of a periodic succession of extreme-wave events in the area from the third millennium BC to the third century AD. Return periods range from 400 to 800 years. Some of these extreme-wave events may have had a magnitude comparable with that of the so-called “Lisbon earthquake” of 1755. Contrary to the tenets of the uniformitarian paradigm in geology—still influential in the archeological literature—these events had short-, mid-, and long-term geomorphological and paleo-environmental, as well as immediately destructive and demographic, effects. Attention should also be called to the reverberations of these events in the cultural development of southwestern Iberia, which is independently known for puzzling interruptions, recommencements, and transformations every few centuries from the Neolithic to the Roman period. The two records, natural and cultural, might be connected. In study areas with a compelling historical and archeological heritage, such as western Andalusia, there is a need for multidisciplinary projects that, by bringing geology and biology to bear on archeology and history, aim to accurately establish the succession of geographical and environmental transformations, the impact of these transformations on the area’s cultural history, and the chronology of the events.