Scientists have reconstructed how rising sea levels transformed the northern Adriatic coastline over the past 10,000 years, revealing that areas now submerged were once inhabited by ancient human populations. Researchers at the University of Southampton, led by Samuele Ongaro, combined seismic data with sedimentary core samples extracted from coastal basins across northern Italy, Slovenia, and northern Croatia to model historical sea level changes and landscape shifts.
The study, appearing in Quaternary Science Reviews, demonstrates that the Venice lagoon—famous today as a floating city—was previously dry land that extended more than 30 miles from the present coastline. Similarly, the city of Trieste occupied what was once an area characterized by hills overlooking swamps and lagoons, indicating vastly different environmental conditions than those present in the modern era.
Beginning approximately 10,000 years ago, sea levels rose gradually but unevenly across the region, with rates reaching up to 25mm annually during peak periods. These changing conditions forced Mesolithic hunter-gatherer societies to continuously relocate and adapt their subsistence strategies, shifting focus between hunting and fishing activities as their environment evolved. The sea level rise occurred in three distinct phases of significant change, eventually giving way to a period of relative stability spanning the past 6,000 years.
This prolonged stability in more recent millennia provided conditions suitable for permanent human settlement and the emergence of agricultural practices in the landscape recognizable to contemporary observers. The research illustrates how dramatic environmental shifts shaped human prehistory and settlement patterns across the Mediterranean region.
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