From 300 BC to AD 300, the city of Pergamon underwent a profound transformation that impacted the rural settlement patterns and the concomitant geomorphodynamics. We present a geoarchaeological study in a long-term settled catchment in the Pergamon micro-region to disentangle the Holocene geomorphodynamics and triggering factors, for example, climate change and human activity. The analyses of eight radiocarbon-dated sediment profiles from the Tekkedere alluvial fan and its catchment indicate four principal sedimentation phases. Phase 1 (ca. 6.2 to 5–4 ka) is dominated by the floodplain aggradation of the receiving Bakırçay River, which is followed by the formation of floodplain soils (phase 2). Substantial geomorphodynamic changes occurred around 4 ka (phase 3), when the edge of the floodplain was buried by fan sediments of the tributary Tekkedere creek. This is attributed to supraregional aridization and rapid climate change events, superimposed by the onset of local human activities. Repeated cycles of coarse- and fine-textured fan sediments with age inversions after ca. 3.8 ka and valley infills younger than 1300 yr BP indicate the strong erosion and redeposition of sediments in phase 4. These increased geomorphodynamics may coincide with the changing settlement pattern and thus reflect human–environment interactions.

At the end of 1886 a method occurred to me of rapidly recording the positions of the lines of the solar spectrum, which I thought might be used with advantage for determining the faint “Telluric dry-gas lines” near D, mentioned in Professor Piazzi Smyth's maps of The Visual Solar Spectrum in 1884. The fundamental idea of the recording apparatus is that of magnifying by some mechanical means the motion of the grating, or prism, to such an extent that it can be recorded on a continuous fillet of paper. The viewing telescope being then firmly clamped, the exact positions of the grating can be pricked off on the strip of paper as the lines are successively brought to the fixed cross in the field of view.

For the satisfactory use of the method two conditions suggest themselves as desirable. First, the punctures should not be less than a good-sized pin hole, and the interval between the closest lines, which the spectroscope is able to separate, should be represented on the paper strip by a space of several tenths of an inch.