reconstruction of the holocene coastline of mesopotamia

Abstract

Abstract At the end of the last glacial period, a major marine transgression inundated the head of the Persian Gulf to a position as much as 400 km inland from the present shoreline. After 6000 B.P., the Shatt al‐Arab delta prograded southward to its current position. These events had a profound impact on our knowledge of early human occupation and the development of civilization in the Tigris‐Euphrates valley. The former settlements of people living on the pre‐6000 B.P. coastal plains are today either under the waters of the Gulf or under sediments of the lower alluvial plain.