Journal article
The long and intertwined record of humans and 1 the Campi Flegrei volcano (Italy)
- Abstract:
- The Campi Flegrei volcano (or Phlegraean Fields) of Campania, Italy, is the site of the largest eruption from a European volcano in at least 200 ka. Here we summarise the volcanic and human history of Campi Flegrei and discuss the interactions between humans and the environment within the “burning fields" from around 10,000 years until the 1538 CE Monte Nuovo eruption. The region’s incredibly rich written history documents how the landscape changed both naturally and anthropogenically, with the volcanic system fuelling these considerable natural changes. Humans have exploited the beautiful landscape, accessible resources (e.g., volcanic ash for pulvis puteolana mortar) and natural thermal springs associated with the volcano for millennia, but they have also endured the downsides of living in a volcanically active region—earthquakes, significant ground deformation and landscape altering eruptions. The pre-historic record is detailed, and various archaeological sites indicate that the region was certainly occupied in the last 10,000 years. This history has been reconstructed by identifying archaeological finds in sequences that often contain ash (tephra) layers from some of the numerous volcanic eruptions from Campi Flegrei and the other volcanoes in the region that were active at the time (Vesuvius and Ischia). These tephra layers provide both a relative and absolute chronology and allow the archaeology to be placed on a relatively precise timescale. The records testify that people have inhabited the area even when Campi Flegrei was particularly active. The archaeological sequences and outcrops of pyroclastic material preserve details about the eruption dynamics, buildings from Roman times, impressive craters that now host volcanic lakes and nature reserves, all of which make this region particularly mystic and fascinating, especially when we observe how society continues to live within the active caldera system. The volcanic activity and long record of occupation and use of volcanic resources in the region make it unique and here we outline key aspects of its geoheritage.
- Publication status:
- Published
- Peer review status:
- Peer reviewed
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(Preview, Version of record, 10.4MB, Terms of use)
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- Publisher copy:
- 10.1007/s00445-021-01503-x
Authors
- Publisher:
- Springer
- Journal:
- Bulletin of Volcanology More from this journal
- Volume:
- 84
- Issue:
- 2022
- Article number:
- 5
- Publication date:
- 2021-12-10
- Acceptance date:
- 2021-10-11
- DOI:
- EISSN:
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1432-0819
- ISSN:
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0258-8900
- Language:
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English
- Keywords:
- Pubs id:
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1200221
- Local pid:
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pubs:1200221
- Deposit date:
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2021-10-12
Terms of use
- Copyright holder:
- Costa et al.
- Copyright date:
- 2021
- Rights statement:
- © The Author(s) 2021. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
- Licence:
- CC Attribution (CC BY)
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