Prehistoric Wetland Sites of Southern Europe: Archaeological Matter, Environmental Context, Research Potential, and Threats to Preservation

AbstractArchaeological remains of dwellings that were originally built in wetland environments and today in many cases are waterlogged, offer rich materials and data due to their outstanding preservation. At the same time, off-site deposits in wetlands bear detailed information on palaeoenvironmental conditions. The unique methodological possibility to correlate archaeological settlementsequences with temporally uninterrupted palaeoenvironmental records in a high temporal resolution, and thus to reconstruct coherent long-term human–environment relationships, is of particular significance. In this opening chapter, the authors introduce the basic parameters of an overarching, contextual perspective to prehistoric wetland settlements of Mediterranean Europe, not only in geographical terms, but also in (inter-) disciplinary, or methodological terms, respectively. Sites from eastern Spain, southern France, Italy, Slovenia, theBalkan Peninsula, and the Bulgarian Black Seacoastare discussed by archaeologists, dendrochronologists, bioarchaeologists, and palaeoecologists. Whereas the waterlogging of the anthropogenic remains and environmental data allow for advanced archaeological and palaeoenvironmental research, at the same time the in situ-preservation of the relevant sites, deposits and findings is at stake due to natural erosion processes and human interventions, as well as increasingly to climate change. To preserve this exceptional cultural heritage, the authors underline the pressing necessity and importance to record, inventory, and protect, or professionally excavate and document these sites.