Geoarchaeological investigations at Akko, Israel: New insights into landscape changes and related anchorage locations since the Bronze Age

Since the first archaeological excavations undertaken in the 1970s/1980s, Tel Akko is known to have been an important trade city from the early 2nd millennium B.C. onwards. Even if the site has been intensively excavated, no paleoenvironmental studies looking to understand coastal changes near the tell since the Bronze Agehad been undertaken until recently. Our research is based on the study of sediment cores drilledat the foot of the tell and in the Old City of Akko, 1,500 m west of the tell. We validate the coastal changes, already proposed by previous studies, while clarifying the chronology of these changes. We propose that the southern anchorage was located in the river mouthof the Na'aman until the early Persianperiod. This anchorage shifted to the “open” western coast of the tell during the Persianperiod before its subsequent relocation to the rocky promontoryof Akko in Hellenistic times. We attempted to locate the Hellenistic harbor of Akko by coring in the Old City, in proximity to the modern harbor. At that time, a harbor lay in a semi‐protected pocket beachat the foot of the promontory.