Ilaria Mazzini
I am a researcher at IGAG-CNR (Institute of Environmental Geology and Geoengineering, National Research Council of Italy). I use continental sediments as environmental and climate archives. My research focuses on shells of micro-crustaceans (ostracods), which provide detailed information on environmental parameters such as salinity, water depth and occurrence of aquatic vegetation. Stable oxygen and carbon isotopes and trace element ratios of ostracod shells serve as additional proxies of environmental change. I mainly work in international multidisciplinary projects on Quaternary-Neogene records from the Mediterranean area, the Arabian Peninsula and eastern Africa. I am also involved in several geo-archaeological projects about the evolution of the ancient harbours in the Mediterranean. I am very interested in ostracod ecology and sampled many water bodies around the world to learn more about the ecological preferences of species for applications of Quaternary ostracods as indicator taxa. I have authored more than 80 oral and poster presentations at national and international scientific congresses.
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harbor of Rome. Its location on the Tiber delta next to the Tyrrhenian Sea produced rapid environmental
changes that, together with historical vicissitudes, largely determined the fate of the harbor. We have
assembled data on the mineralogy, sedimentology, geochemistry, and ostracod populations of a sediment
core drilled in the access channel of the hexagonal basin of Trajan, with the expectation that such a
combined data set will shed new light on how the connections of the inland Trajan basin with the Tiber
river, the earlier Claudius harbor on the nearby shoreline, and the sea evolved through the centuries. The
data define four distinct periods which geochemistry characterizes by different conditions of salinity and
oxygenation. These in turn can be related to historical periods and events by means of 14C data. The early
Imperial Period was dominated by input of well-oxygenated freshwater from the Tiber. During the Late
Empire, harbor water became relatively more influenced by seawater and increasingly oxygen deficient,
which attests to a decommissioning of the Canale Trasverso connecting the harbor to the Tiber. The strong
anthropogenic signal, which is visible very clearly in geochemical parameters, attests to the human
occupation of the harbor area up to the Early Middle Ages, when human activity was brought to an
abrupt end. The simultaneous use in this study of multiple complementary tracers has allowed for the
sedimentary sources of the different classes of particles in the harbor basin to be identified and assigned
to either the freshwater supply from the Canale Trasverso or the seawater of the Claudius harbor.
especially that of Rome. The evolution of its environmental history and its partial transformation into a
saline body of water during Antiquity remain as poorly known to archaeologists and historians as to
geologists and geographers. A high chronostratigraphical resolution palaeoenvironmental study has been
carried out on a sediment core. It is based on multi-proxy analysis and pays particular attention to ostracods,
which are very useful palaeoenvironmental indicators in marginal marine environments. Our
study has unveiled five evolution phases of the landscapes in the countryside of Ostia: (1) between the
6th and the middle of the 2nd millennia BC a lagoon open to the sea was formed; (2) the lagoonwas then
subject to marine and fluvial influences,; (3) between the middle of the 2nd and the beginning of the 1st
millennia BC, a marshland formed, indicating either a period of limited flooding or a shifting of the
branch of the Tiber; (4) during the first part of the 1st millennium BC, the lagoon became again connected
to the sea. In this area, its depth at the time of the founding of Ostia varied between 3.5 m and
4.5 m (below ancient sea level), which suggests that it could have served as a naturally sheltered place on
the coast; (5) from the middle of the 1st millennia BC to the 19th century AD, the lagoon probably
remained connected to the sea and progressively silted, until it disappeared in the 19th century.
combined data set will shed new light on how the connections of the inland Trajan basin with the Tiber river, the earlier Claudius harbor on the nearby shoreline, and the sea evolved through the centuries. The data define four distinct periods which geochemistry characterizes by different conditions of salinity and
oxygenation. These in turn can be related to historical periods and events by means of 14C data. The early Imperial Period was dominated by input of well-oxygenated freshwater from the Tiber. During the Late Empire, harbor water became relatively more influenced by seawater and increasingly oxygen deficient,
which attests to a decommissioning of the Canale Trasverso connecting the harbor to the Tiber. The strong anthropogenic signal, which is visible very clearly in geochemical parameters, attests to the human occupation of the harbor area up to the Early Middle Ages, when human activity was brought to an abrupt end. The simultaneous use in this study of multiple complementary tracers has allowed for the sedimentary sources of the different classes of particles in the harbor basin to be identified and assigned to either the freshwater supply from the Canale Trasverso or the seawater of the Claudius harbor.
or as a confluence between two rivers. Our research aims to reconstruct the past biodiversity and the Middle-Late Holocene palaeoenvironmental and palaeoclimatic changes using Ostracods, Characeae, and comparing
the micropaleontological data with pollens and stable isotope curves. Thirteen ostracod and five charophyte species were identified. Amongst the ostracods Candona montenigrina and Limnocythere scutariense
are endemic of the lake; Candona meridionalis, Paralimnocythere georgevitschi, Metacypris cordata, Candona ex gr. bimucronata, and Cyclocypris sp. have been collected for the first time in Lake Shkodra; the last three taxa occurred only in the lower portion of the sediment core. Amongst the charophytes, Lychnothamnus barbatus and Nitella hyalina are recorded for the first time in the lake and occurs with high frequency throughout the lower portion of the core. A drastic change occurs between 1274 and 1197 cal yr BP, when 8 ostracod species out of 13 and all charophytes disappear, and the frequency of the remaining 5 species dramatically increases.
The micropaleontological data suggest a decrease of the lake biodiversity since around 1200 cal yr BP linked to the transition between an ancient marshland to a lacustrine environment. This drastic event seems to be independent from any global or local climate change but linked to the complex hydrographic setting of the lake and of its only outlet, the River Bojana, discharging in the Adriatic Sea.
Southern Mesopotamian urbanization was strongly connected to the exploitation of these fluvial systems and their peculiar environment. Therefore, the complex morphodynamic processes of the Holocene, influenced by climatic changes and sea-level fluctuations, had a major impact on the Sumerian society and its development. The interaction between Sumerians and their environment, ethno-historically documented by cuneiform sources, is evident from the anthropic activities recognized by archaeological investigations, such as the hydraulic management of natural channels and the realization of artificial irrigation canals. In this study, Abu Tbeirah, a medium-size 3rd millennium BC city, located near the Sumerian capital of Ur (Nasiriyah), is considered as an example of the past interactions between man and environment. The site was indeed dependent on a main channel visible from the satellite imagery: this watercourse, fundamental for the everyday life of Abu Tbeirah’s inhabitants, crossed the site from the Northwest to the Southeast and was linked to an artificial basin, interpreted as an ancient harbour, from which a secondary artificial canal was derived. The abandonment of the site at the end the 3rd millennium BC might be linked to an abrupt and marked increase in aridity, the so-called “4.2 ka event”, a climatic change attested in Northern Mesopotamia, Syria and other areas of the Mediterranean and Middle East Regions. On this basis we retain that Abu Tbeirah’s economy and life, based on the surrounding water resources, might have been hampered by this megadrought. In order to verify this hypothesis, field-testing on the channel/canals and boreholes were realized at Abu Tbeirah and in its proximities aiming at detecting the palaeoenvironmental evolution of the area in relation to the evidence of climatic switch. The preliminary results of the sedimentological, paleontological, palaeobotanical and 14C analyses, carried out on samples collected during the field surveys, will be presented and related to the archaeological evidence.