BRONZE AGE PALEOGEOGRAPHIES AT ANCIENT TROY

For several decades we have known that the coastline of a shallow marine embayment partially surrounded the cliffs of the cuesta Hissarlik, site of ancient Troy (Ilium) near the mouth of the Dardanelles. Since 6000 ybp, the delta floodplains of the Scamander (Kara Menderes) and Simois (Dumrek Su) rivers have prograded over 10 km northward to the present Dardanelles shore. We can show that in the late Neolithic-early Bronze age the site of Troy was on the immediate shoreline and thus in a viable maritime setting of harbors with abundant shellfish and other resources. Radiocarbon dates (7000 to 3500 b.p.) in a coastal lagoon-shallow marine lithosome indicate shoreline progradation of ca. 3 km to within 1 km NW of Troy at the time of the Iliad, 3250 b.p. However, precise delineation of the shorelines and potential harbors until about 2000 ybp remains difficult. A number of hypotheses have been proposed. A careful analysis of the Classical literature provides what appear to be very specific indicators of coastline configurations from Late Bronze Age times to the time of Strabo's writings. A combination of classical literature, sedimentary facies analyses, and ¹⁴RC dates allow new possibilities in harbor delineations from the Trojan War (3250 BP) to Roman time (circa 2000 ybp).