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The Aleria Del Sale lagoon in Eastern Corsica provides an excellent location for palaeoenvironmental research in order to better understand the palaeogeography of the island's coastline and to disentangle the role of human and natural factors in landscape evolution. A borehole drilled to a depth of 5.30m was located a short distance from one of the most relevant archaeological sites on the island. Environmental reconstruction methodologies included mollusc identification, sedimentological and palynological analyses combined with robust chronological control provided by 8 radiocarbon dated samples allowing the reconstruction of the coastal lagoon and the surrounding vegetation history over the last 6 millennia. The Aleria Del Sale lagoon was formed around 3500calBCE, when sand bars linked to the deltaic progradation of the Tavignano River enclosed shallow marine waters. Pollen data reveals the existence of a semi-open landscape at this time in which human activity was widespread. The open lagoon shifted into a confined lagoonal system around 2200calBCE and this change in the feature was coeval with a notable decrease in human disturbance of the area and the end of the Chalcolithic Terrina occupation. The following period saw shrub and woodland regeneration and the brackish environment continued until the 19th century CE. Human activity did not have a significant impact on the vegetation until the Genoan Period. The evolution of the vegetation history and the diverse human activity across the Eastern Plain during the Bronze Age until the Genoan Period is furthermore explored in this paper. The uppermost layers of the lithostratigraphic sequence reflect the transformation of local conditions in response to recent (20th century) drainage operations.

This paper aims to reconstruct the landscape evolution together with the vegetation history of the lower Sagone Valley, Western Corsica, which was occupied from the Bronze Age to the Medieval Period. Adopting a geoarchaeological approach, the combination of sedimentological, palynological, and geophysical data enables the reconstruction of various stages in the landscape evolution of the Lower Sagone River over the last 4000years, together with the history of human occupation. The methods consist of a palaeoenvironmental study of 9 boreholes drilled in the modern deltaic plain, at a maximum distance of 500m from the present-day shoreline. The laboratory analyses included mollusk identification and measurements of the grain-size distribution (by wet sieving). A series of 21 radiocarbon dates on charcoal, plant remains, wood fragments, and marine mollusk samples formed the basis for a chronostratigraphy. In order to reconstruct the vegetation history of the catchment, with particular attention to anthropogenic activity, pollen analysis was conducted on clay samples from the deepest borehole, and they revealed a semi-open forest during the Bronze Age and Late Iron Age with extensive pastoral activity and limited cereal cultivation. Electric Resistivity Tomography (ERT) of 3 profiles across the alluvial plain was conducted in order to reveal the geometry of the sedimentary bodies. The salient features are the presence of a freshwater lake during the Mid- to Late Bronze Age (from 1500 to 1100cal. BCE), its transformation into an open marine bay from ca. 1100 until 500cal. BCE, and the formation of a confined lagoon from 500cal. BCE to 200cal. CE.

A new dataset of 16 14C radiocarbon dates better constrains Relative Sea Level (RSL) changes in Corsica Island since the late Neolithic (~3.6kaBCE). Conflicting Holocene RSL histories between the northern and southern portions of Corsica coast are presently available in literature. Here we provide new RSL data obtained by sediment coring and beachrock analysis performed along the eastern coast of the island. These data, coupled with previously available ones, were compared with the predicted RSL variations modelled by means of the sea-level equation solver SELEN. Data from different coastal sectors of Corsica indicate a coherent pattern of RSL since the late Neolithic when the RSL was placed ~ 3.8m below the present mean sea level. Then sea-level rose at rate of ~2mma−1in the Chalcolithic period (~3.5 and ~2.3kaBCE) followed by a significant deceleration with rates ≤0.4mm−1from the early Bronze Age to present time (last 4.0ka). The total RSL variation since ~0.5BCE does not exceed ~−0.9m. Our data are in good agreement with previous sea-level estimates made using fixed biological indicators collected in NW Corsica and derived from geo-archaeological investigations in continental France. Conversely, beachrock samples from the Bonifacio strait (southern Corsica) seem to significantly underestimate the RSL position especially between ~3.5 and ~0.5kaBCE. Such discrepancy might reflect radiocarbon calibration issues rather than sea-level variation. These results suggest that further multiproxy investigations are fundamental to better assess the regional sea-level evolution of this archaeologically important sector of the Mediterranean.

•We present new geoarchaeological data from Siraf (Persian Gulf).•Siraf dates back to the beginning of the current era.•A second occupation phase began during the reign of Shapur II.•Accessibility of this ancient harbour affected by various environmental factors.

We quantify GIA prediction uncertainties of 250 1D and 3D glacial isostatic adjustment (GIA) models through comparisons with deglacial relative sea‐level (RSL) data from North America and rate of vertical land motion ( U̇) and gravity rate of change ( Ġ) from GNSS and GRACE data, respectively. Spatially, the size of the RSL uncertainties varies across North America with the largest from Hudson Bay and near previous ice margins along the northern Atlantic and Pacific coasts, which suggests 3D viscosity structure in the lower mantle and laterally varying lithospheric thickness. Temporally, RSL uncertainties decrease from the Last Glacial Maximum to present except for west of Hudson Bay and the northeastern Pacific coast. The uncertainties of both these regions increase from 30 to 45 m between 15 and 11 ka BP, which may be due to the rapid decrease of surface loading at that time. Present‐day U̇and Ġuncertainties are largest in southwestern Hudson Bay with magnitudes of 2.4 mm/year and 0.4 μGal/year, mainly due to the 3D viscosity structure in the lower mantle. We predict the GIA signal with uncertainties of RSL and present‐day U̇and Ġin North America that are associated with 3D structuresGIA‐predicted RSL uncertainties are largest around Hudson Bay and near former ice margins along northern Atlantic and Pacific coastsThe maximum uncertainties of present‐day U̇and Ġare centered in southwestern Hudson Bay and near former ice margins