The coast of Croatia and its nearby islands maintain an arid climate. These areas receive an average annual rainfall of 816 mm and a summer temperature ranging between 25°C and 35°C. They include few freshwater sources. The island of Hvar is one of the most arid and inhabited islands in Dalmatia. It is quite small (114 square miles) and not heavily populated (11,500 residents). St. Clement (Sv. Klement) Island is even smaller (2.0 square miles) and far less populated, with only one person living there throughout the year and varying amounts of others visiting in warmer months. Through personal interviews and research, it was found that in the past people living on both Hvar Island and St. Clement collected rainwater via cisterns usually located outside of their own homes or natural springs that may have been near, a practice continued from ancient times. In 1986, the Brač pipeline was built. It transports freshwater from the mainland river Cetina to the southern regions of Croatia and the islands of Brač, Šolta, and Hvar. Water practices have changed considerably, with the biggest change being that water is not treated as a limited resource. This new attitude, combined with increased tourism (ca 170,000 tourists visit Hvar island during summer months; the average stay is 5 days per individual) resulted in increased water use, and thus increased waste water flows into the sea (there is no wastewater treatment plant on the island). The question that this project focused on was whether the estrogens were present in the drinking water samples (modern vs. traditionally generated), and range of aquatic environments. This question was addressed through the analyses of a variety of drinking water, spring water, and seawater samples to assess the estrogenic activity (estradiol concentrations) in each, as estradiol is a good indicator of estrogenic pollution.

Over the past three years of excavating a Roman villa in Soline Bay on Sveti Klement Island in the Adriatic Sea, I have found the evidence of infant burials. In 2011 I found some skeletal fragments under roof tiles within a room in Trench 4. In 2012 in Trench 8, which was the extension of Trench 4 from 2011, I found another possible infant burial under a broken amphora or pithos (a large storage jar). There were several small stones placed in a formation along one side of the infant burial. This year once again we found some possible infant remains in the same general location of the previous test trenches 4 and 8, but those were found loose in the soil not under any cover. These remains have not been analyzed yet, and the exact age of the infants and the date of burials are unknown. Burials of children and adults within Roman villas are not uncommon and generally date after the villas were abandoned.

The Roman Empire utilized a complex system of maritime trade routes spanning the Mediterranean. Consequently, the Romans relied upon harbors and the settlements that developed around them and sustained them for trade. Eventually, however, these harbor settlements declined, sometimes centuries after the fall of the Western Roman Empire. Each settlement declined for its own unique combination of political and economic problems. However, two environmental processes, silting and rising sea levels, have affected the decline of many such settlements. We studied two Roman harbor settlements as case studies to explore the effects of these influential processes on harbor settlements. One settlement is Ostia Antica, a large ancient city in close proximity to Rome. The other settlement is a small island settlement located near the Bay of Soline on St. Clement, off the coast of modern-day Croatia. Both of these sites were significantly affected by one of the two most influential environmental factors. Ostia was plagued by natural silting, while Soline was affected by rising sea levels. I attempted to explain the causes of silting and rising sea levels, the evidence of these processes at the two sites, and their influence on these settlements and Roman harbor settlements in general. In order to study these effects, I learned about archaeological methods and harbor settlements first-hand by traveling to the site on St. Clement during the summer of 2012 season in order to participate in a yearly archaeological dig. My experiences at the site, along with the archaeological methods used to investigate Roman harbor settlements, are presented in this poster.

For centuries, the Adriatic has been a major thoroughfare of goods, peoples, and war. From the Illyrians and the Greeks, to the Romans and the Byzantines, the Croatian islands have been a center for such activities. St. Clement in particular, is just one location that has recently been studied, mainly through archaeological excavations of a Roman villa site. However, more research has led archaeologists to believe that the island may have other sites in the surrounding area that must be surveyed. I used Geographic information to identify some of these other possible sites and the fields surrounding the current archaeological site. This survey was done in hopes of finding more ancient human activity on the island. One location in particular included the hill to the southeast of the current archaeological site. Its commanding view of the sea on each side of the island and the fields below make the location interesting to archaeologists. A mound of stones on its north slope could be a prehistoric, Illyrian grave. My work this summer will aid any systematic archaeological survey of this area in the future.

The coast of Croatia and its nearby islands maintain an arid climate. These areas receive an average annual rainfall of816 mm and a summer temperature ranging between 25°C and 35°C. They include few freshwater sources. The island of Hvar is one of the most arid and inhabited islands in Dalmatia. It is quite small (114 square miles) and not heavily populated (11,500 residents). St. Clement (Sv.Klement) is smaller (2.0 square miles) and far less populated, with only one person living there throughout the year and varying amounts of others visiting in warmer months. Through personal interviews and research, it was found that in the past people living on both Hvar Island and St. Clement collected rainwater via cisterns usually located outside of their own homes or natural springs that may have been near, a practice continued from ancient times. In the 1990’s, the Brač pipeline was built. It transports fresh water from the mainland river Cetina to the southern regions of Croatia and the islands of Brač, Šolta, and Hvar. Water practices have changed considerably, with the biggest change being that water is not treated as a limited resource. This new attitude, combined with increased tourism (ca 170,000 tourists visit Hvar island during summer months; the average stay is 5 days per individual) resulted in increased water use, and thus increased waste water flows into the sea (there is no wastewater treatment plant on the island). The question that this project focused on was whether the present infrastructure can handle the increased sewage effluent output and whether the sewage should be treated before release into sea. This question was addressed through the analyses of a variety of drinking water, spring water, and seawater samples to assess the estrogenic activity (estrone concentrations) in each, as estrone is a good indicator of pollution with human waste.

In June 2011 I participated in the fifth season of the Croatian-American excavations of a Roman villa in Soline Bay on the island of St. Clement (Sv. Klement in Croatian). The island is located in the Adriatic Sea and was important to connecting the Mediterranean area through trade in the Greco-Roman period. Agriculture on the island was limited to two areas, where there was farmland. Fields were abandoned in one of those areas where it is now thick brush. Over the past 10 years the local people have been going back to vineyard planting and limited farming in the Soline Bay area. I was interested in the quarries on the island and wanted to find out the extraction methods that were used in Roman times. The building material for the villa probably came from a quarry in the neighboring bay, east of Soline Bay. I worked with a Croatian geologist in investigating this quarry. He told me that just by making a visual and physical inspection of the quarry it looked to be a match with stone masonry of the villa. For further studies, thin sections of limestone are looked at under microscope for ancient organisms that were fossilized millions of years ago. Each formation of limestone has a unique composition of organisms, so by matching the organisms in the quarry and the organisms in the wall we can tell whether or not the stone used to build the villa came from this island or not. I learned that when the Romans quarried limestone they started at the top of the limestone rock formation and worked their way down the ground, so as not to destroy the integrity of the rock. The process of stone extraction can be understood by the marks that the tools have left in the stone at the site. I realize that this job of archaeology is hard work but it is so rewarding also with the discoveries you make every day. I always wonder what discovery is around the corner for me to find. On the last day on the Soline Bay site I wrote in my journal: “I am truly sad to have to go. It feels like there is more to do here and I want to be a part of it. We have plans to do backfill today, I have bonded with my trench and now I have to fill it back up after all the hard work I put into it, but I understand the need to preserve what we have found. I can’t wait to come back next year and be a part of new discoveries.”

Filled with small islands, the Adriatic Sea has been a center for trade, war, and civilization for centuries. However, while academics from a wide-range of disciplines acknowledge the area’s significance and continue to study the region, there is little geographic data available for the many islands scattered throughout the Sea. One such area with limited geographic information is the small island of St. Clement (Sveti Klement), Croatia, the site of an ongoing Croatian-American collaborative archaeological project. With very little spatial data available to work from, maps reflecting the area have been inaccurate and lacked detail, as geographic representations of the area, from landuse estimates to elevation, were based on limited data with high risk for error. The goal of this project was to gain a comprehensive understanding of the island and collect spatial data via Global Positioning System (GPS) units and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) software. From its jagged perimeter complete with many bays and peninsulas, to its maze of trails and few tracts of remaining arable land, the island is rich with valuable geographic information previously left unknown. This data and its products, including accurate maps and elevation models, can be applied to enhance future work in the area, specifically the UST archaeological dig.

The question of how the Romans dominated the Mediterranean area for so long has long been debated. One argument is how regional economic specialization within the Roman Empire was vital to its success and longevity. Whether it was through fishing, crabbing, or collecting salt the territories in the Mediterranean islands had economies that relied on the sea. Salt works are just a manifestation of this sea economy. The work I did in the salt works in Soline Bay on the island of St. Clement, Croatia, gave an insight into the purpose of the site and confirmed beliefs. Also it gave me a comparative look at other salt works in the area, which helped to fill in the context of the site. The regional specialization throughout the territory under Roman domination was the foundation of Roman longevity; the salt works on the island of St. Clement is a representation of that specialization.

The goal of this project was to investigate how the militarization of the Adriatic region in the 5th century and the Gothic-Byzantine Wars in the 6th century affected an island settlement, using historical and archaeological evidence. During Late Antiquity there was an increase of instability throughout the Mediterranean due to the decline of the imperial political order and the rise of warfare. The Adriatic islands were central to military events, but historical sources are scarce. In order to fully understand the effects of the war on socio-economic and cultural issues, archaeological fieldwork was carried out to see what remains could help us better understand life during the war. The project was centered around a Roman villa settlement in Soline Bay on the island of St. Clement in Croatia. Through survey and excavation we saw how cultures are intertwined in trade and sale of goods—pottery being a main indicator and how a once wealthy Roman villa was transformed into a naval port for war.