Tracking Earthquake Archaeological Evidence in Late Minoan IIIB ( 1300-1200 B.C.) Crete (Greece): A Proof of Concept

Abstract

Late Minoan (LM) IIIB (∼1300-1200 B.C.) represents a crucial period in the history of Bronze Age Crete, heralding the transition to the Iron Age through a wave of site destruction and abandonment. According to the traditional view, earthquakes may have played a significant role in these events. A new archaeoseismological approach is proposed to test this hypothesis and to attribute destruction and abandonment to earthquakes. Potential earthquake archaeological effects (PEAEs) are defined and documented at LM IIIB sites. Synchronisms of PEAEs between sites are based on ceramic evidence. The reliability of the PEAEs is furthermore assessed using empirical ground-motion relationships defined for three types of earthquake mechanisms that can be considered to occur in the seismotectonic context of Crete:(1) normal-faulting earthquakes located within the overriding Aegean lithosphere;(2) earthquakes located on the subduction interface or on splay faults merging with the interface at depth; (3) earthquakes within the subducting African lithosphere. In the case of LM IIIB1/early Malia and Sissi (northeastern Crete), this proof of concept is successfully applied and supports the hypothesis that seismic shaking is likely to be responsible for the PEAEs observed. A 12 October 1856 A.D.-type earthquake located within the subducting African plate is suggested as the most likely earthquake mechanism. In other LM IIIB archaeological contexts, no convincing evidence for earthquake effects could be identified. The hypothesis of a seismic storm causing the demise of Minoan Crete is not supported by our analysis of archaeological evidence.

Social Resilience to Climate-Related Disasters in Ancient Societies: A Test of Two Hypotheses

“…Disasters caused by geological processes, human-derived environmental degradation, asteroid strikes, or the like (e.g. Jusseret, Langohr, and Sintubin 2013;Gunn 2000;Sheets 2012;van der Leeuw et al 2005) are not considered here as they are not examined in the literature on societal tightness, discussed below. In addition, only "catastrophic" events, defined by Lorenz and Dittmer (2016:37) as "devastating events which encompass entire societies" are focused on, as opposed to less far-reaching "disasters" or localized "emergencies" (Lorenz and Dittmer 2016).…”

Earthquake damage as a catalyst to abandonment of a Middle Bronze Age settlement: Tel Kabri, Israel

“…Macro-indicators-Conclusion. The Potential Earthquake Archaeological Effects (PEAEs) presented above support six of the seven primary criteria set by [11] as evidence for potential earthquake identification. These adhere to off-fault effect as defined by [17].…”

“…The structures mentioned below belong to the end of Phase III, the time when the palace and surroundings were destroyed and abandoned (all locations correspond to rooms and walls in Fig 2). Each sub-section refers to one of seven Potential Earthquake Archaeological Effects (PEAEs) defined by [11] (Table 1).…”

“…Recognizing past earthquakes can be extremely challenging in the archaeological record, especially at sites where stone masonry is meagre and use of degradable construction materials such as sun-dried mudbricks and wattle-and-daub was practiced. Therefore, the effect of earthquakes on the archaeological record remains debated and often viewed as "catastrophism" (e.g., [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11]). Recent studies have applied an integrated approach for identifying ancient earthquakes, combining the location of faults with the expected effects of earthquakes on site stratigraphy, structures, and artifacts found within sites and observable by the naked eye [11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18].…”

Destruction Layers, Urban Evolution, and Earthquakes in Roman Patras, Greece

“…This is a new, town‐oriented and statistical approach for the identification of earthquakes and is different from the deterministic approach based on a wealth of data by Galli and Mollin () for Rome, or from various other approaches proposed so far: geology‐enhanced approaches (Altunel, ; Puci et al, ; Stiros et al., ), fault‐modeling‐enhanced approaches (Stiros, ), seismology‐enhanced approaches (Hinzen, ; Stiros, ; Jusseret et al., ), regional, feature‐oriented approaches (focusing on inscriptions not mentioning destruction and causes of destruction approaches; Stiros et al., ), or modeling of damage expected by seismic motions (Hinzen et al., ). The proposed methodology is expected to prove useful in many ancient towns in which a large number of excavations exist, especially for regions with relatively large recurrence intervals of earthquakes ( cf .…”