From the Gulf of Latmos to Lake Bafa: On the History, Geoarchaeology, and Palynology of the Lower Maeander Valley at the Foot of the Latmos Mountains

by Alexander Herda, Helmut Brückner, Marc Müllenhoff and Maria Knipping

Hesperia, Volume 88, Issue 1
Page(s): 1-86
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2972/hesperia.88.1.0001
Year: 2019
VIEW ONLINE

ABSTRACT:

Through a two-part approach, new light is shed on the evolution and history of Lake Bafa (modern Bafa Gölü in western Turkey) and its environs, the former regions of northwestern Karia and southern Ionia. This article both outlines the charter myths that the immigrant Greeks and indigenous Karians created to sanction their land ownership, and investigates the lake as a geo-bio-archive for the evolution of the landscape over the past millennia. In sum, a comprehensive anthropogeography of the lower Maeander delta region at the foot of the Latmos Mountains is presented.