International audienceAlthough the ancient site of Utica has been studied since the 19th century, the location of its harbors remains unresolved as they were buried under sediments as the Mejerda delta prograded and left Utica 10 km inland. Using relief data and a coring survey with sedimentological analysis, we identify the dynamics of the delta's progradation, which produced a double system of alluvial fans. These show that the ancient bay of Utica silted up faster and earlier than was thought, probably before the end of the Punic period. Combined with the radiocarbon dates from coring, this suggests that the harbor lay on the northwestern side of the Utica promontory, communicating with the sea by a marine corridor west of the northern compartment of the delta. As the infilling of the ancient bay progressed, this corridor narrowed until it disappeared completely in the early 5th/mid-6th century A.D., when a peat bog developed on the northern side of the promontory, sealing the fate of Utica as a port. This relative environmental stability ended in the 9th–10th century A.D. when about 4 m of sediment, probably of fluvial origin, covered the peat bog, leaving the site more than 4.5 m above the local sea level. C 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc

No abstract

While the Punic Wars (264-146 BC) have been the subject of numerous studies, generally focused on their most sensational aspects (major battles, techniques of warfare, geopolitical strategies, etc.), curiously, the exceptional economic resilience of the Carthaginians in the face of successive defeats, loss of mining territory, and the imposition of war reparations has attracted hardly any attention. Here, we address this issue using a newly developed powerful tracer in geoarchaeology, that of Pb isotopes applied to paleopollution. We measured the Pb isotopic compositions of a well-dated suite of eight deep cores taken in the Medjerda delta around the city of Utica. The data provide robust evidence of ancient lead-silver mining in Tunisia and lay out a chronology for its exploitation, which appears to follow the main periods of geopolitical instability at the time: the Greco-Punic Wars (480-307 BC) and the Punic Wars (264-146 BC). During the last conflict, the data further suggest that Carthage was still able to pay indemnities and fund armies despite the loss of its traditional silver sources in the Mediterranean. This work shows that the mining of Tunisian metalliferous ores between the second half of the fourth and the beginning of the third century BC contributed to the emergence of Punic coinage and the development of the Carthaginian economy. paleopollution | mining resources | Medjerda river | Punic Wars | Utica

No abstract

According to ancient literary tradition, Utica is considered to be one of the first three Phoenician foundations in the Western Mediterranean, supposedly founded in 1101 BC by Levantines from Tyre. In the Phoenician and Roman periods, it was an important merchant coastal town, on a promontory facing the sea. Over the centuries Utica lost its access to the sea, and its ports silted up as a consequence of the activity of the wadi Medjerda, which flowed to the south of the city. Despite over a century of investigation by archaeologists and associated researchers, the location of the city's harbour structures from the Phoenician and Roman periods remains unknown, buried under sediments resulting from the progradation of the Medjerda. Based on the study of sedimentary cores, the research presented here highlights the existence of a long maritime façade to the north of the Utica promontory in Phoenician and Roman times. A deep-water marine environment is attested in the former bay from the 6th mill. BC and the depth of the water column along the northern façade was still 2 m around the 4th -3rd c. BC. Another core to the east of the Kalaat El Andalous promontory showed the possibility that this sector was a sheltered harbour during the Phoenician and Roman periods. This paper illustrates the contribution of geoarchaeology to address this archaeological problem and to understand the relations of this important port city with the sea.