Landscape evolution around Minturnae

The Garigliano Plain, located between Latium and Campania, has a surface of 240 km2 and is an coastal/delta plain that filled up a graben generated by some anti-Appennine faults in the early Pleistocene. The same faults originated the uplift of the mesozoic carbonate massifs of Monti Aurunci (north-west) and Monte Massico (south-east) , while, eastward is present the Roccamonfina pleistocenic volcanic district. The fluvial discharge gradually filled up part of the graben and during the Tyrrhenian time shoreline was characterized by beach ridges that closed a wide bay with lagoons and marshes. During the following glacial phase, the sea level fell to about 120 m under the present one, and the Garigliano river locally eroded the ancient beach ridge. After the last glacial maximum the sea level rose approaching the present sea level about 6000 B.P. In this period new beach-dune ridges developed near the new mouth of the river and along the coast, and the area between the new and the old dunes was characterized by lagoons and marshes. During the last 6000 years a wave dominated delta developed at the Garigliano mouth. At present the Garigliano delta plain (Fig. 1) is characterized, from the sea to landward, by an holocenic strand plain, by low and wet areas and by the Eutirrenian dune ridges, that separates the delta plain from the alluvial one (ABATE et alii, 1998). Remains of the colony of Minturnae are present on the Eutyrrhenian dune ridges at the inner margin of the low area present on right side of the Garigliano distributary. The ancient literature describes the landscape during Roman times indicating that the city was at the edge of a lake created by the river. But what was the real nature of the area between the shoreline and the city? There was a lagoon with an harbor? Which may have been the evolution of the area before, during and after the life of the Roman colony of Minturnae?