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Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 3 (2015) 398–407

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports

journal homepage: http://ees.elsevier.com/jasrep

A submerged monolith in the Sicilian Channel (central Mediterranean
Sea): Evidence for Mesolithic human activity

a,
Emanuele Lodolo ⁎, Zvi Ben-Avraham b,c
a
Istituto Nazionale di Oceanograﬁa e di Geoﬁsica Sperimentale (OGS), Trieste, Italy
b
Department of Earth Sciences, Tel Aviv University, Israel
c
Charney School of Marine Sciences, University of Haifa, Israel
article i nfo abstract

Article history: The ancient geography of the Mediterranean Basin was profoundly changed by the increase in sea level following
Received 26 April 2015 the Last Glacial Maximum. This global event has led to the retreat of the coastlines, especially in lowland areas
Received in revised form 1 July 2015 and shallow shelves, such as the Sicilian Channel. The NW sector of this shelf, known as Adventure Plateau, is
Accepted 4 July 2015
studded by isolated shoals mostly composed of Late Miocene carbonate rocks and by some volcanic ediﬁces.
Available online xxxx
These shoals, until at least the Early Holocene, formed an archipelago of several islands separated by stretches
of extremely shallow sea. One of these submerged features – the Pantelleria Vecchia Bank – located 60 km
Keywords:
south of Sicily, has been extensively surveyed using geophysical and geological methods. It is composed of two
Sicilian Channel
Shallow banks main shoals, connected seaward by a rectilinear ridge which encloses an embayment. Here we present morpho-
High-resolution bathymetry logical evidence, underwater observations, and results of petrographic analysis of a man-made, 12 m long mono-
Underwater surveys lith resting on the sea-ﬂoor of the embayment at a water depth of 40 m. It is broken into two parts, and has three
Petrographic analysis regular holes: one at its end which passes through from part to part, the others in two of its sides. The monolith is
Radiometric ages composed of calcirudites of Late Pleistocene age, as determined from radiocarbon measurements conducted on
Submerged monolith several shell fragments extracted from the rock samples. The same age and composition characterize the
Mesolithic human activity
metre-size blocks forming the rectilinear ridge. The rest of the rocks composing the shoals are mostly Tortonian
limestones–sandstones, as revealed by their fossil content. Extrapolating ages from the local sea level curve, we
infer that seawater inundated the inner lands at 9350 ± 200 year B.P., the upper limit which can be reasonably
taken for the site abandonment. This discovery provides evidence for a signiﬁcant Mesolithic human activity in
the Sicilian Channel region.
© 2015 Published by Elsevier Ltd.

1. Introduction the northern Adriatic, and the Tunisia and Malta platforms. The Sicilian
Channel is geologically part of the northern African continental shelf
An abundant number of archaeological and geological data ac- (Fig. 1) and lies mostly under shallow water, with the exception of
quired in several coastal areas of the Mediterranean Basin represent three NW-trending, relatively deep troughs (the Pantelleria, Malta and
the evidence that it has undergone major changes in sea level during Linosa grabens) produced since the Early Pliocene by rift-related pro-
the glacial-interglacial cycles (e.g., Lambeck and Chappell, 2001; cesses (e.g., Reuther and Eisbacher, 1985; Boccaletti et al., 1987; Cello,
Lambeck and Purcell, 2005; Antonioli et al., 2009; Auriemma and 1987; Civile et al., 2010). This tectonic extension was also responsible
Solinas, 2009). After the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), around of the formation of the two volcanic islands of Pantelleria and Linosa,
19,000 year B.P., when the land area of Europe was ~40% larger and other submerged volcanic ediﬁces lying along the eastern margin
than it is now, a relatively abrupt global rise in sea-level took place, of the Adventure Plateau (Calanchi et al., 1989; Rotolo et al., 2006;
estimated to be of 125 ± 5 m, as determined by correcting observed Lodolo et al., 2012). It occupies the north-western sector of the Sicilian
sea-level changes for glacio-hydro-isostatic contributions (e.g., Fleming Channel, where available oil exploratory wells have shown that the sed-
et al., 1998; Mix et al., 2001; Siddall et al., 2003; Lambeck et al., 2004; imentary sequence ranges from Triassic to Plio-Quaternary, with vari-
Clark et al., 2009). ous hiatuses associated with long periods of aerial exposition and/or
The Sicilian Channel is one of the shallow shelves of the central Med- erosion (Civile et al., 2014). The Adventure Plateau is the shallowest
iterranean region where the consequences of changing sea-level were part of the entire Sicilian Channel, and is punctuated by several isolated
most dramatic and intense, as also occurred in part of the Aegean Sea, banks, some of them rising up to less than 10 m below sea level
(Colantoni et al., 1985). During the LGM, the Adventure Plateau was
⁎ Corresponding author. part of the former Sicily mainland, forming a peninsula (the Adventure
E-mail address: elodolo@ogs.trieste.it (E. Lodolo). Peninsula) bulging towards south into the Sicilian Channel, and

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