The environmental setting of the harbor of the classical site of Oeniades on the Acheloos delta,Greece

Using a multidisciplinary approach, the Holocene geomorphological and palaeoenvironmental dynamics of the Acheloos delta were studied in order to understand how the ancient port of Oeniades, today situated 5 km from the sea, was connected to the sea in ancient times. A study of ancient maps, aerial photographs, and a SPOT image enabled us to reconstitute the successive changes in the flow of the Acheloos River and to conclude that, contrary to the traditional thesis of historians and archeologists, the harbor of Oeniades was completely independent from the river during Antiquity. Multidisciplinary studies (sedimentology, malacology, palynol‐ogy, and radiocarbon dating) were carried out on sediments from two boreholes (OEN1 and OEN2). Results show that the port of Oeniades communicated directly with an open bay that was created at the peak of the last post‐glacial transgression. The bay was gradually filled with sediments, allowing human occupation of the area to progress. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.