Research Expedition: Climate and Cultural Change in the Aegean Sea

Heidelberg Earth scientists lead research ship METEOR's voyage to the eastern Mediterranean. How did climatic and environmental change impact early eastern Mediterranean cultures, and what were the consequences of human settlement on land and marine ecosystems? In order to collect research data to answer these questions, the German research ship METEOR - under the guidance of Earth scientists from Heidelberg University - is embarking on a multi-week expedition to the Aegean and Ionian seas. The international research team will collect sediment cores from the sea floor along the coast of Greece, which they will use to reconstruct the interplay of climatic, environmental, and cultural change during the past 11,500 years. The research team will also include Heidelberg archaeologists and geographers, in addition to cooperation partners from Greece, France, and the United States. "Sediment cores from the sea floor can provide unique insights into climatic and environmental changes in the Mediterranean region throughout history. If they can be correlated timewise with archaeological finds on land, it will be possible to draw new conclusions about connections between climatic events and socioeconomic or sociocultural upheavals," explains Jörg Pross, a researcher at the Institute of Earth Sciences at Heidelberg University and the scientific leader of the expedition. The special thing about marine sediment cores acquired from coastal areas is that they allow a reconstruction of both the environmental conditions in the sea and also on the mainland near the coast.