The changing environment
The landscape and environment surrounding Butrint has altered greatly during the last 10 millennia. During full glacial conditions of the last ice age, c. 10,000 years ago, sea levels were as much as 120 m below current levels, making it possible to walk across the Straits of Corfu. The large costal plain of open vegetation would have provided an important resource for Palaeolithic hunters known to have occupied the region.
At the close of the last glacial period, rising sea levels were the main agent of environmental change, drowning the former coastal plains and surrounding Butrint with a body of water that stretched northwards as far as Phoenicź and south towards Mursia. Today, Lake Butrint and Lake Bufi are all that remains of this once large coastal embayment. Marine foraminifera recovered from Lake Bufi indicate it remained open to the sea until 5,000 years ago.
Over time, rivers flowing along the surrounding valleys brought large volumes of sediment into the embayment, gradually infilling it and leading to the formation of large deltas growing seawards and the emergence of swampy, estuarine environments. While this is a natural process, climatic fluctuations, tectonic movement and human activity in the area would have acutely affected the rate and extent of these changes. There is evidence for Mesolithic exploitation of the emerging wetland areas, and by the Bronze Age, c. 3,500 years ago, soil erosion resulting from forest clearances is likely to have accelerated the deposition of sediments within the valley. These cultural impacts are clearly recorded in regional palynological records.
By the 1st century AD, a large floodplain had grown to infill the greater extent of the valley south of Butrint, providing fertile agricultural lands. The valley bottom would have contained a major river system, meandering its way seawards within what would have become an intensely managed landscape during the centuries of Roman influence.
Over the last 2 millennia the floodplain has continued to grow, with accelerated wetland development around the western margins during the medieval revival of the city. Today Butrint is over 2 km inland from the seashore, linked to the coast by a narrow channel draining from Lake Butrint. A series of boreholes along the margins of the floodplain south of Butrint clearly show the environmental transformation of the area from an open coastal embayment, to estuarine wetlands and finally to a well drained floodplain.
This sequence of environmental change is common to coastal areas in the Mediterranean, and has transformed the setting of many ancient towns and cities such as at Ephesus, where the displacement of the citys port occurred on more than one occasion. The ancient site of Troy in Anatolia is now also well inland of the current coastline.
- Landscape formations around Butrint
- Palaeolithic flint tools from Kalivo and Shėn Dimitri