126-8 Tracing Relict Trees: Using Plane Trees as Proxy for Pre-modern Water Channels on Samothrace, Greece

Session: Geoarchaeology of Sites to Landscapes: Current Research on Long-Term Water and Soil Management and Maladaptation, Part II

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Abstract:

The north side of the mountainous island of Samothrace, Greece, is home to numerous short (2-5 km) streams flowing directly to the sea. These natural channels are straight and incised at the upper and middle reaches, forming floodplains and deltas only near the coast. Agricultural potential is therefore limited without water management. Samothracian farmers have historically relied on water channels (anegoi in the local dialect) to siphon water from streams for irrigation using weirs and stone-built channels that hug the slopes towards cultivated fields. Modernization programs in the 20^th century replaced most stone-built channels with concrete ones, which remain in use today. While archaeological work has mapped high-visibility concrete and stone-built channels, the long-term water management history has been limited by the ephemeral nature of older constructions. If preserved at all, the paths of older stone channels are fragmentary, either lost to forest or scarcely visible under concrete channels.

      The Samothrace Lidar Project (SaLiP) has employed aerial lidar to support archaeological research on the island, including the water channels. Still, older, fragmentary constructions remain difficult to spot in lidar-derived models, reinforcing the bias towards concrete channels. To address this, this present research explores the Oriental plane tree (Platanus orientalis) as a proxy for stone-built water channel courses. These long-living trees are naturally found within river channels or adjacent to springs, plane trees also grow along stone-built channels that leak water into the surrounding soil, mimicking stream channel conditions. Plane trees found growing on the slopes between river channels and field systems, therefore, might indicate a derelict water channel course. Those found along known concrete channels, furthermore, might indicate that the concrete construction was predated by a stone channel.

This research presents preliminary findings from the north coast of Samothrace, identifying plane trees that grow outside natural channels. Using lidar data, the study segments and characterizes leaf crowns in the forest canopy to identify plane trees. It then compares the locations of these trees to known water channels to assess the relationship between extra-channel plane trees and water channels. More broadly, this research explores the landscape legacies of long-term water management practices.

Geological Society of America Abstracts with Program. Vol. 57, No. 6, 2025

doi: 10.1130/abs/2025AM-9367

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