Trajan Port Area Paleo-botany Study
The PORTUS FOUNDATION NPO in 2010 commissioned the Department of Environmental Biology, of the "La Sapienza" University of Rome, an environmental study of the area built in the Port of Trajan, with the aim to achieve the reconstruction of the cultural landscape and of the “natural aquatic environment”, through the definition of environmental and cultural conditions that have shaped it over time until the recent period.
The multidisciplinary research, that has involved biologists, chemists, ecologists, geologists and archaeologists, started from the study of macroscopic and microscopic plant remains, and animals found microfossils, in the sediments of the reservoir.
The study, completed by chemical/environmental analysis, has particularly emphasized the ongoing relations between terrestrial and aquatic vegetation, past and present, and those biodiversity conservation aspects.
The choice, which led to promote the hexagonal lake area study, formerly Port of Trajan, was determined by the fact that the site is "unique" at world level, for the perfect existing fusion between the archaeological good and those natural elements carefully preserved in its scope. The basin also has the prerogative to record continuously the environmental history of the delta of the Tiber, from the second century AD to date, linking and integrating the paleo-environmental studies with those that can be performed on the environment today.
The PORTUS FOUNDATION NPO in 2010 commissioned the Department of Environmental Biology, of the "La Sapienza" University of Rome, an environmental study of the area built in the Port of Trajan, with the aim to achieve the reconstruction of the cultural landscape and of the “natural aquatic environment”, through the definition of environmental and cultural conditions that have shaped it over time until the recent period.
The multidisciplinary research, that has involved biologists, chemists, ecologists, geologists and archaeologists, started from the study of macroscopic and microscopic plant remains, and animals found microfossils, in the sediments of the reservoir.
The study, completed by chemical/environmental analysis, has particularly emphasized the ongoing relations between terrestrial and aquatic vegetation, past and present, and those biodiversity conservation aspects.
The choice, which led to promote the hexagonal lake area study, formerly Port of Trajan, was determined by the fact that the site is "unique" at world level, for the perfect existing fusion between the archaeological good and those natural elements carefully preserved in its scope. The basin also has the prerogative to record continuously the environmental history of the delta of the Tiber, from the second century AD to date, linking and integrating the paleo-environmental studies with those that can be performed on the environment today.